As the last several
weeks have hopefully served to reiterate, conservative opposition to
innovations in policy and law – to the point, even, of suspicion and paranoia –
can be, and has been, an exceedingly useful aspect of a robust discourse within
the context of American political culture. Certainly within the context of the
American Founding, the arguments of people like Samuel Bryan (1759-1821) –
author of the Anti-Federalist essay series published under the name Centinel –
have served to strengthen the ability of successive governments to adequately
preserve and promote the liberties of the American people by encouraging
grounded discussions about concepts like authority, trust, sovereignty, and
legitimacy. The efforts in question did not always succeed in holding back the
tide of change. Bryan and his fellow Anti-Federalists, writing under pennames
like Cato, Brutus, and Federal Farmer, notably failed to defeat the
ratification of the United States Constitution over the course of 1787 and
1788. But the degree to which they managed to encourage closer scrutiny of the
subject at hand by drawing the attention of an otherwise unconcerned public to
some of the more troubling implications of the proposed national government
would seem to have more than justified their various exertions.
Consider, to that
end, the Bill of Rights. Had men like Samuel Bryan, Melancton Smith
(1744-1798), and Robert Yates (1738-1801) refrained from pointing out the
danger posed to their countrymen by the absence of any federal guarantee that
the fundamental rights of the American people would be respected, the proposed
national government may well have been permitted to come into existence lacking
the various safeguards which subsequent generations have rightly come to
characterize as being essential to their liberty. Imagine a United States
Government not bound by law to observe the right of free expression, or free
assembly, or freedom of the press. Consider the potential outcome of an
American judicial system in no way obligated to respect individual privacy, or
to refrain from levying excessive bail or fines. This is the value of
vigilance, skepticism, and even distrust within the realm of public policy. By
pointing out the abuses which may have resulted from the creation of a
government not formally required to pay heed to the civil liberties of its
constituents, the Anti-Federalists ensured that the administrative framework which
was subsequently adopted – and which remains in force to this day – was far
less likely to devolve into the kind of tyrannical authority they collectively
feared would be the case. That being said, their efforts did at times stray
into the realm of hysteria and alarmism, to the point that certain of the
scenarios they described in their respective treatises were improbable in the
extreme. But there was a kind of logic to this as well. The degree to which they
were able to garner the attention of their fellow citizens at a time when
printing presses across the nascent American republic were churning out
pamphlets, broadsides, and essays for and against the proposed constitution was
doubtless to some extent proportional to the emotional response their efforts
were able to elicit. A sober, even-handed critique of the various shortcomings
of the document in question may have been easily lost amidst the tumult. But a
forceful warning of the dangers posed to the American people by the creation of
consolidated national government, delivered with all the flourishes that the
art of rhetoric could provide? Not only was something like that far more likely
to move copies, but it was also far more likely to get those who read it to
consider whether they truly had something to fear or not.
Bearing all of
this in mind – and because sometimes we must manufacture excuses to talk about
the things we want to talk about – the series which follows will consider
another such effort at principled paranoia within the realm of the American
Founding. The author in question is in this case one Patrick Henry (1736-1799)
– he of “Give me Liberty or give me Death” – and the document less a treatise
than the written transcript of a speech. Having refused, on principle, to take
part in the Philadelphia Convention (1787) in spite of being selected by the
government of Virginia to attend, Henry accordingly played no part in drafting
the original text of the United States Constitution. He did, however, agree to
represent Prince Edward County at the convention held in his home state (June 2nd
– 27th, 1788) for the purpose of ratifying or rejecting the same. It
was there, addressing his fellow Virginians as they set themselves to the task
of examining every article, section, and clause of the proposed constitution in
detail, that Henry delivered one of the last great speeches in a career defined
by great speeches. At times, over the course of this oration, he was
self-deprecating. At times he seemed animated by a kind of patriotic ardor. At
times he even said things that were manifestly untrue. But at no point amidst
the cajoling and the doom-saying, the entreaties and the embellishments, did it
ever appear as though Patrick Henry believed the case he was making was
anything other than just and proper. In consequence, while it is important when
rereading the address in question to maintain a degree of skepticism as to the
veracity of certain of the more grandiose claims therein, the document is
nevertheless worthy of thoughtful consideration. The degree to which Henry
threw his weight as an orator against the ratification of the proposed
constitution speaks to the concern which the proposition of an empowered
national government aroused in one of American liberty’s staunchest and loudest
defenders. The resulting sturm and drang may have risen at times almost to the
level of parody, but the sincerity of the effort would seem as relevant under
the circumstances as the substance thereof, and now and then Henry – that
master incendiary – even managed to make a critically incisive point.
But first, of
course, we must begin at the beginning. The story of Henry’s life, it turns
out, was both typical and atypical of the class and community to whom he
belonged, blending elements both of substantial privilege and hard-won success.
Consider, to that end, his family situation. Born in 1736 in Hanover County to
Scottish immigrant John Henry – who had attended King’s College in his native
Aberdeenshire and came to Virginia in the 1720s – and wealthy Virginia widow
Sarah Syme, young Patrick was undeniably blessed to have enjoyed the benefit of
his mother’s abundant resources at the same time that he was destined to carve
a path in the world for himself. His father being a man of limited means, and
his elder half-brother John Syme Jr. standing to inherit their mother’s estate,
Henry was unable to rely upon the luxury and ease that had been provided him in
his youth, bouncing instead from one vocation to another until at least the
early 1760s. Having served, for instance, as a clerk for a local merchant at
the age of fifteen, he next began an ill-fated retail venture with his brother
William the following year, received a dowry of six slaves and three hundred
acres upon his marriage to Sarah Shelton in 1754, abandoned the resulting
farmstead in spite of several hard years spent attempting to make it profitable
after the main house burned down, and ultimately found himself tending patrons
and playing the fiddle in the Hanover Tavern at the behest of its owner – and
Henry’s his father-in-law – John Shelton. Of note during this period in his
life – in particular for the way it illustrates the difference in circumstances
between Henry and the kind of men whom posterity would record as his
contemporaries – was a passing encounter that occurred in 1759.
A young man of
seventeen stopped at the Hanover Tavern on the way from his home in Orange
County to the colonial capital in Williamsburg where he was attending classes
at the College of William & Mary. Though this youthful traveler – one
Thomas Jefferson (1744-1826) – was eight years Henry’s junior, he owned more
property and was on his way to attaining a better education than had yet been
possible for young Patrick. In spite of such manifest differences in their
material circumstances, however, Jefferson and Henry were nevertheless bound
for the same arena: the law would provide them both with steady employment and
carry them both from provincial obscurity to national prominence. But whereas
Jefferson studied with George Wythe (1726-1806), one of the wealthiest and most
prominent lawyers in the colony, Henry saw to his own education, applied to the
colonial bar after as little as one month of study, and was licensed to
practice law in Virginia by April, 1760. Thereafter establishing a practice in
his native Hanover County, he soon made a name for himself as both a talented
orator and a something of a political firebrand. The single case which
effectively established this reputation was the final stage of the so-called
“Parson’s Cause,” a political controversy that had been unfolding in Virginia
since the middle 1750s and which concerned – in effect – the relationship
between the colonial government and the British Crown.
The Church of
England being the established faith in the Province of Virginia, members of the
Anglican clergy residing within that jurisdiction were accordingly entitled to
public support. While the resulting appropriations has previously been paid out
in cash, the scarcity of hard currency and the rise in the price of the
colony’s staple crop that had each commenced at the end of the 1740s led the
Virginia House of Burgesses to mandate in 1748 that clergymen would thereafter
be entitled to sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco per year. This remained a
mutually-acceptable substitute for cash payments for the better part of the
decade that followed, at which point another period of drought increased the
price of tobacco yet again. Formerly valued at two pence per pound, the cost
rose during the period of 1755-1758 to six pence per pound, resulting in the
passage of the so-called “Two-Penny Acts” by the colonial assembly which
substituted two pence per pound payments for the relevant commodity
allocations. Though intended as a temporary measure – valid until such time as
the price of tobacco returned to pre-drought levels – Virginia’s Anglican clergy
did not react kindly to the evident slashing of their wages, and they
accordingly appealed to the Crown for relief. George III (1738-1820) responded by
authorizing the Board of Trade – a committee within the Privy Council
responsible for colonial affairs – to overturn the Two-Penny Acts, thus
permitting the offended clergymen to sue for their supposedly absconded back
pay.
Of the five cases
thereafter filed, only one met with a successful verdict. Reverend James Maury
(1717-1769) was deemed a valid complainant by the judiciary of Virginia, who
subsequently empanelled a jury in early December, 1763 for the purpose of
determining and awarding damages. Maury retained Peter Lyons (1734-1809),
future Chief Justice of Virginia, as his counsel. Hanover County contracted a
young, self-taught lawyer named Patrick Henry to plead its case. Standing
before the assembled jurors, opposing counsel, Rev. Maury, and the presiding
judge – and having listened as Lyons spoke glowingly and at length of the importance
of the clergy to the culture and society of Virginia – Henry proceeded to take
almost complete control of what would have otherwise been a relatively routine
proceeding. In a soon-to-be characteristic maneuver, he first effectively
abandoned the question of damages – which is to say, the question that the
entire hearing had been convened to answer – and began instead to re-litigate
the issue that Maury’s successful suit had otherwise settled. The purpose of
the Two-Penny Acts, Henry affirmed, had not been to punish the Anglican
clergymen residing in Virginia, but rather to provide a degree of necessary
relief to the government responsible for supporting their material existence
and to the people from whom that support was due. By overturning these
measures, the Crown had thus effectively declared that its own prerogatives
were of greater legal significance than the needs of the people whose
collective sovereignty was embodied in the membership of the House of Burgesses.
Henry went on to
conclude, employing language which would likewise become wholly characteristic
of his approach to public discourse, “That a King, by disallowing Acts of this
salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a Tyrant
and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience.” Though accused by opposing
counsel of behaving in a treasonous fashion by thus denigrating the behavior of
a sitting monarch, Henry was nonetheless permitted to continue his petition.
Rev. Maury, he avowed, had to be made an example of, lest others imitate his
attempt to extort the people of Virginia. Henry accordingly insisted that
damages be set at no more than one farthing – i.e. one quarter of a penny.
Though the jury, after a brief deliberation, ultimately determined to increase
the reward owed to Rev. Maury beyond what Henry had suggested, the message
which he had intended to be delivered was most definitely preserved. Given one
penny for his troubles, Maury’s case was deemed settled and Patrick Henry was
hailed as a hero.
Having thus established a name for himself
as a defender of colonial liberties against the traditional prerogatives of the
British Crown, the next decade of Henry’s life and career perhaps inevitably
drew him into the emerging debate at the center of the Anglo-American crisis of
the 1760s and 1770s. In 1765, now representing Louisa County in the House of
Burgesses, he once again found himself railing against the very notion that
Parliament had a constitutional right to levy taxes upon the inhabitants of
British North American, this time in the context of the recently-passed Stamp
Act. The resulting Virginia Stamp Act Resolves, which Henry introduced, notably
stated that,
The General
Assembly of this Colony have the only and exclusive Right and Power to lay
Taxes and Impositions upon the inhabitants of this Colony and that every
Attempt to vest such Power in any person or persons whatsoever other than the
General Assembly aforesaid has a manifest Tendency to destroy British as well
as American Freedom.
Though this text
was later expunged from the version of the Resolves ultimately adopted by the
House of Burgesses – thanks, it would seem, to Henry’s momentary absence from
the chamber – it was restored when the document was reprinted in newspapers
outside of Virginia and in Britain proper. Thus, at a leap, Henry’s reputation
expanded from merely that of provincial Virginia rabble-rouser to
internationally famous advocate of the rights of British America.
The next several years were something
of a whirlwind in the lives of Patrick Henry and colonial Virginia, as a campaign
of relatively measured dissent against institutional authority gave way to what
was in effect a form of political insurrection. Having spent the latter half of
the 1760s outside of the political arena – thanks in part to the efforts of
Governor Francis Fauquier (1703-1768) to sideline the increasingly radical
House of Burgesses – Henry returned to the public stage in 1773 when he helped
draft a petition against the actions of recently-appointed Governor John
Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730-1809). When Murray next attempted
to dissolve the House of Burgesses in response to Henry’s attempt in June, 1774
to secure a vote of sympathy on behalf of the city of Boston in response to the
passage of the Intolerable Acts, Henry and his colleagues reconstituted
themselves at the nearby Raleigh Tavern as a kind of shadow government known as
the Virginia Convention. At the first meeting of this body in August, 1774,
Henry was selected, along with the likes of George Washington (1732-1799) and
Benjamin Harrison (1726-1791), to attend the First Continental Congress
(September 5th – October 26th, 1774) as one of Virginia’s
seven delegates. While his consequent service in Philadelphia was relatively
uneventful – his aggressive temperament led to many of his efforts being
sidelined or ignored by the body’s comparatively moderate leadership – the
numerous occasions during which he rose to speak yet further burnished his
already lustrous reputation for oratorical brilliance. The secretary of the
Congress, Pennsylvania delegate Charles Thompson (1729-1824) notably recorded
at the time that, in spite of Henry’s modest appearance, the Virginian, “Evinced
such [an] unusual force of argument, and such novel and impassioned eloquence
as soon electrified the whole house. Then the excited inquiry passed from man
to man ... 'Who is it? Who is it?' The answer from the few who knew him
was, it is Patrick Henry.” The events of 1775 would amply prove out the
justice of this impression.
Having returned to Virginia in
October, 1774 and stood for election in Hanover County for the second session
of The Virginia Convention the following spring, Patrick Henry was in
attendance when that same body met to discuss the drafting of a petition aimed at
disputing recent British actions in America. Doubtless eager to shift the
discussion away from reconciliation and towards the position which he had at
that point been advocating for the better part of a decade – i.e. that no one
could make law for the colonies but the colonial assemblies – Henry proceeded
to offer a series amendments intended to authorize the raising of a colonial
militia wholly independent of royal authority. His more moderate colleagues
consequently accused him of attempting to foment armed conflict, to which Henry
responded, on March 23rd, 1775, with what would become the most famous speech
of his entire political career. “It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter,”
Henry avowed.
Gentlemen
may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The
next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?
What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace
so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me
liberty or give me death!
The remainder of
the 1770s was someone more tumultuous for Henry than this kind of response
would seem to indicate. Governor Dunmore, it seemed, had also heard tell of
Henry’s speech, and marked well the objective in whose support it had been
delivered. Intent on cutting off the potential effectiveness of an independent
militia, Dunmore ordered a contingent of Royal Marines stationed in
Williamsburg to seize the local powder stores on April 21st, 1775. Henry
postponed his departure for Philadelphia to take up his seat in the Second
Continental Congress when news of this incident reached him in Hanover County,
took command of the local militia, and proceeded to lead them on a march to Williamsburg.
While Henry’s force drew in volunteers as it travelled – thanks in no small
part to news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19th,
1775) finally arriving in Virginia – it was ultimately stopped and turned back
some sixteen miles from the colonial capital. Eager to preserve the possibility
of reconciliation, certain of Henry’s fellow delegates to the Continental
Congress convinced him to abandon his campaign to occupy Williamsburg and
continue on to Philadelphia in their company once it became clear that the
absconded powder would be paid for. Two further events in 1775 and 1776
likewise serve to solidify the impression that this incident had arguably made
manifest, namely that Henry’s colleagues in Virginia were not always as
supportive of his actions as they were awestruck by his words. The first came
in September, 1775, when Henry was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Virginia
militia. In this role, though the value of his reputation was much appreciated
in the way it supported recruitment, it was hoped by the leadership of the
Virginia Convention that Henry’s more radical tendencies would be constrained
by the necessities of civilian oversight and the organizational burdens of
command.
Just so, when it
came time to elect the state’s first post-independence governor in June, 1776,
Henry was the overwhelming choice of his fellow delegates. That this in fact
represented a slight owed to the nature of the office. Henry had vigorously
advocated during the drafting of the Virginia Constitution in favor of a
strong, independent chief executive capable of acting with dispatch and
efficiency during a time of war. The primary author of what would ultimately
prove to be the accepted draft, George Mason (1725-1792), disagreed. Owing to
the disdain with which many in Virginia – Henry included – had come to regard
Lord Dunmore, his immediate predecessors, and the British Crown, Mason and his
supporters concluded that a weak governor and an empowered legislature represented
by far the preferable balance of institutional power. It doubtless also crossed
their minds that giving Henry what he wanted would almost certainly result in
his gaining the power they most feared in his hands. An active,
popularly-elected governorship would almost certainly have fallen to Henry if
put to a vote. Thus empowered, Mason and his cohorts surely asked themselves,
what might be the result? Being an advocate of religious freedom, would Henry
attempt to disestablish the Anglican Church? Being an avowed critic of slavery
– though also a slaveholder himself – would he attempt in some way to limit the
practice or abolish the trade? While such radical actions would doubtless have
appeared to most people imprudent while their country was entering into a war
for its very existence, Henry had yet to demonstrate that prudence was a trait
he either possessed or much respected. Better, Mason and his cohorts therefore
concluded, to vest the greater share of power in a body which more accurately
represented the needs and priorities of Virginia as a whole. And better yet, so
long as the office of chief executive was intended to be a weak and subordinate
one, to award that same office to the man whose fame and fervor gave them such
cause to fear. Provided that he accepted the honor – such as it was – Henry’s
reputation would do much to encourage respect for the new administration
without easily enabling him to successfully overthrow or subvert it.
The three terms
which Henry proceeded to serve as Virginia’s first post-independence governor
were accordingly something of a struggle. Unable to exert his authority over
that of the General Assembly, he was forced instead to leverage his popularity
and his command of the state militia to accomplish what little he could on
behalf of the ongoing American war effort. Recruitment, for instance, remained
a persistent problem throughout the Revolutionary War, as Henry’s fellow
Virginian – and the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army – George
Washington (1732-1799) well attested. While Henry could and did make use of his
reputation in attempting to shore up the resulting manpower shortages, he could
do nothing to alter the terms of enlistment without legislative support. Instead,
perhaps seeking a victory that would inspire more than it actually effected, he
dispatched an expedition in 1777 to capture the British settlement of Kaskaskia
– now in Illinois, then in the vaguely-defined backwoods of Kentucky. Led by
George Rogers Clark (1752-1818), the resulting campaign was a resounding
success, managing to disrupt Britain’s hold on the Old Northwest and permitting
Henry to claim the expansion of Virginia’s territorial boundaries as far west
as Lake Michigan. The elation which followed this victory did not last long,
however. Early in May, 1779, despite Henry having appealed to Congress for
naval protection in Chesapeake Bay, a squadron under Sir George Collier
(1738-1795) landed British troops at Portsmouth and Suffolk. Over the course of
the week that followed, the invaders raided repeatedly and destructively up and
down the coast, destroying up to one millions dollars’ worth of valuable war
materials. Though Henry could hardly be blamed for the occurrence – defense
spending falling firmly within the purview of the General Assembly – it was
nonetheless telling that his first stint as governor should have ended with
such ignominy. In the far West, where no Virginians actually lived, he had
helped to push the claims of his country farther than ever before. And in the
East, on the densely-populated Chesapeake coast, he had witnessed the
destruction of whole communities.
Henry’s second
stint as Governor, following a relatively uneventful interim between 1779 and
1784, ultimately proved to be about as successful as the first. An attempt to
consolidate control over the various county militias – remarkably in
cooperation with the General Assembly – failed when the counties themselves
refused to comply with what they deemed to be a series of unconstitutional
officer appointments. The law which terminated all existing commissions – thus
permitting Henry to fill every command-level vacancy at once – was widely
disregarded, and Henry requested that the General Assembly repeal it in
October, 1785. During that same year, statesman and solider Arthur Campbell
(1743-1811) called for the separation of Washington Country from Virginia as
part of the formation of the proposed State of Franklin – a saga whose
circumstances have been discussed in weeks past. Henry responded by at once
calling for leniency on behalf of the inhabitants of the region in question –
the economy had not been kind to them, he affirmed, and their anxiety was being
taken advantage of – and authorizing the passage of legislation making it a
treasonous act to form a rival government within the boundaries of Virginia. The
relatively peaceful conclusion of the Franklin crisis precluded the enforcement
of the resulting Treason Act, however, and Henry’s final year in office
thereafter proceeded rather sleepily to its conclusion in November, 1786.
The period from 1787 to 1790
witnessed both Henry’s final stint as an elected official – in this case
serving as the representative of Prince Edward County in the House of Delegates
– and one of the last occasions during which his famed eloquence was given free
reign before an assembly of his peers. The Annapolis Convention (September
11-14, 1786), to which he had sent a delegation, had concluded its efforts to
reform the Articles of Confederation by calling for a second meeting of the
states in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. Though Henry rejected the offer
tendered by his successor as Governor – the aforementioned Edmund Randolph – to
attend the latter event as one of Virginia’s delegates, it was nevertheless
hoped by several of his countrymen who had agreed to make the journey to
Pennsylvania – namely George Washington and James Madison – that the ultimate
product of their efforts would garner his support. Unbeknownst to the
governments that had dispatched them, it seemed, the attendees of the
Philadelphia Convention had very quickly agreed to abandon any attempt to amend
the aforementioned Articles and instead draft a wholesale replacement in the
form of a federal constitution. Being an avowed supporter of national unity
during his service as Governor, Henry was thought by his cited colleagues to be
a likely advocate for just such an attempt to stave off what certain of them
avowed was the impending disintegration of the American union. Henry, however,
had undergone something of a change of heart during the preceding handful of
years.
Angered by the evident
unwillingness of Congress to send troops to protect Virginia’s growing
settlements in the Ohio Valley, and notably appalled by the terms of the
recently-defeated Jay-Gardoqui Treaty – the general thrust of which was that
the United States would give up access to the Mississippi for twenty-five years
in exchange for access to Spain’s colonial markets – Henry fixated his ensuing
resentment on Virginia’s northern neighbors. Caring only for their commercial
interests, states like Massachusetts and New York appeared to him all too
willing to sacrifice the interests of their southern brethren in exchange for
whatever financial opportunities they could between them secure. Thus did Henry
respond to his friend and colleague Washington upon being sent a copy of the
Philadelphia Convention’s finished work, “I have to lament that I cannot bring
my Mind to accord with the proposed Constitution. The Concern I feel on this
account is really greater than I am able to express.” As the events of the
Virginia Ratifying Convention would shortly prove, however – to which Henry was
elected as a delegate from Prince Edward Country – his powers of expression
were more than up to the task of encompassing the length and breadth of his concern.
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