Essay On Patrick Henry

The Life of Patrick Henry

On May 29, 1736, in Virginia, Patrick Henry was born. His father was an immigrant from Scotland, and ran a family farm, and when Patrick Henry was born he was once thought to have been a prodigy, and a humble origin of his family. Patrick Henry was a lawyer, plantation owner, and commander, who became known as a public speaker, especially as he fought for independence in Virginia in the 1770's. He also came to serve as the Governor of Virginia. In 1765, Patrick Henry led the opposition of the Stamp Act. Henry had extended his influence beyond Virginia as a powerful voice against Britain as they planned to impose a tax on the colonies of America. As he was attacking the Stamp Act during debates of the House

of Burgesses in 1765, and hurled defiance at Parliament, Henry began to form the first opposition to the Stamp Act and the plan of taxing America by British Parliament.
In Patrick Henry's early life, he was born in the town of Studley, in Hanover County, Virginia. Out of nine children, he was the second oldest. Henry received most of his education and schooling from his father, who had attended a university in Scotland, and his uncle, which was an Anglican minister. Growing up, Henry was a musical child, and learned, and played one of the most difficult of instruments, which are the fiddle and the flute. As a child, he modeled his great oratory style on the religious sermons by his uncle and others. With his mother, Henry often attended services held by Presbyterian preachers who only visited the area. At the age of fifteen, Henry began working as a store clerk for a local merchant. A year later he ran a store for his father and his older brother. The store promptly failed and was Henry's first taste of Failure.
As a young man, he then went on to marry his first wife who was Sarah Shelton, who was the daughter of a local innkeeper. During Patrick Henry's Marriage with Sarah Shelton, he then went on to have six children together. As a part of his wife's dowry, He received some farm land, which was about six hundred acres. The farm land was called Pine Slash, which had a house, along with six working slaves. He grew many crops, but his main crop he decided to grow was tobacco. As he tried growing tobacco for three years, he did not fare too well during this new project of theirs either. In 1757, Henry lost their farmhouse to a dangerous fire. He then managed a bar for his father-in-law and studied to be a lawyer. By 1760, Henry barely turned twenty-four and decided to become a lawyer. Self-taught and barely prepared, Henry persuaded the panel of distinguishing Virginia attorneys, which were Wythe and Randolph. Along with his energy and talents, and some encouragement from his influential family. He then established a thriving practice in the courts of Hanover and adjacent countries.
In December 1763, Patrick Henry's political career began. With his astonishing victory in the Parsons' Cause, which was a controversy mainly because of colonial Virginia's tobacco-based economy that became an important precursor of the American Revolution. For decades, the market price of tobacco had been about two cents a pound, but severe droughts drove the price of tobacco much higher. In response to the crisis, the colonial legislature passed the Two-Penny Act, which declared that contracts can be paid in tobacco should be valued according to the normal price rather than the higher "windfall" caused by the recent droughts that they had to witness. Many of Virginia's Clergymen, who already felt that their church did not pay them enough, went to the authorities. The Parsons eventually appealed to colonial authorities, who overruled the Virginia statute and declared it void. The Parsons cause came home to Hanover County when the Reverend James Maury brought suit against the vestry for his back pay. During this point in time, Patrick Henry, who was a young attorney, was asked to argue the vestry's side, especially when the jury convened to determine how much Maury should be paid. Henry won in the Parsons' Cause and helped enhance his legal practice and launched a political career marked by the similar moment of dramatic rhetoric language.
As Patrick Henry won a seat in the House of Burgesses forms Louisa County in 1765, his career began in the lower house of the Virginia's colonial legislature.

Shortly after news had reached the colony of Parliament's passage of the Stamp Act. Henry and the House of Burgesses agreed to constitutional grounds for opposing the Stamp Act, but Henry was direct in his opposition to the Parliamentary taxation. By 1765, the House of Burgesses endorsed Henry's Stamp Act Resolves, which attacked Parliament and their claim to the authority to have taxes against the colonies and seemed to advocate resistance if the imperial government persisted in its course. Patrick Henry's Stamp Act Resolves were published throughout the colonies and Great Britain, established Henry's place among the leaders of the American Revolution. The passage was the occasion for once of his most famous orations, the "Caesar-Brutus" speech, which he suggested that the British monarch risked their fate as if it was Julius Caesar's assassination by Brutus. Henry carried five of an intended seven resolutions. He found it necessary to hold back two of the stronger ones that faced defeat, even though one was later rescinded, but the newspapers that were printed at the time were printed versions of six or all seven resolutions. This made Henry an uncompromising opponent of the imperial

policy.
As tensions between the colonists and the British government, Henry remained a member of the Burgesses, usually challenging the older leaders but always joining them in oppositions to the policies of Britain. As the time went on, in 1769, Patrick Henry was admitted to practice before the General Court, which is the highest judicial figure in the colony. After the Boston Massacre of 1770, Henry joined other Virginians to establish the intercolonial committees of correspondence. The Boston Tea Party, and Parliament’s enactment of the Coercive Acts and to close the port of Boston in 1774, drew the colonies much closer together in their resistance. Henry attended the first session of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in September in the year 1774 starting as one of Virginia's seven delegates and received several important committee assignments. Earlier during his session, he demonstrated his powers as a speaker as he asserted the old governments and colonial boundaries began to sweep away. Patrick Henry then said: "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." (Kukla pg.38) He then took his seat in the Second Continental Congress in May 1775 but did not play the major part in its cautionary deliberations. Henry then set out for home and never again to hold a continental of national office.
A couple of months between the First and Second sessions of the Continental Congress, Patrick Henry came back to Virginia and organized a militia company for Hanover County, open for all volunteers. As he was doing so, he was also coping with the tragedy of Sarah Henry's puerperal psychosis, which is a sudden onset of psychotic symptoms following childbirth, which includes extreme mood swings and hallucinations. When Sarah died in early 1775, Henry resumed as an active leader, and resumed the role in the Revolution, especially at the second Virginia Convention. The delegates of Virginia were mostly divided amongst those who wanted only a peaceful solution to the imperial dispute, or to those who also were ready to prepare for military resistance. Henry led the call for preparedness and introduced a resolution to that effect. He supported the passage of the legendary speech with the closing title of "Give me liberty or give me death!" (Keene 111) His speech was, "I know not what course others may take in confronting George III's encroachments on our liberty, but as for me give me liberty, or give me death!"(Matthews) Even after the speech, Henry only carried out throughout the day with only half of a dozen votes.
During Henry's absence from Virginia for the Second Continental Congress, his military preparations that he prepared and led, had come to the point of realization. The Virginia Convention formed two provincial regiments, and by a narrow vote appointed the inexperienced Henry as the commander of the first regiment and the senior officer of the entire force. As Henry went out as commander, his first line of duty was to recruit troops. Patrick Henry had little difficulty recruiting troops from his growing body of supporters, but in the end his political opponents thwarted the poor Henry's military ambitions. As Henry went on in the military, they gained a victory at the Committee of Safety as they also dispatched the second regiment to fight against Dunmore's forces at Great Bridge, in Norfolk County, in 1775. After that, earlier in the year 1776, the two regiments were incorporated into the newly organized Continental army, Henry then remained a colonel and still commanded his regiment but was to be placed under the command of his former lower ranking soldiers. Henry to serve for the Continental army and his squadron was threatening to resign in protest. Henry then refused to let personal disappointment hurt the American cause and decided to persuade his men to accept their new officers.
As Henry left the governor's office in 1779, as he left he had shown to the world that his political influence was very strong. His social standing was confirmed by his second marriage that was held on October 9, 1777. Henry married Dorothea Dandridge, who was from an old and prominent Virginia family and with whom he had eleven children. Later after settling with his wife and children, he declined an election to the Confederation Congress for his 1780 election to Virginia's House of Delegates. In 1786, Henry also opposed Jefferson's plan of total separation of church and state, favoring the continuation of public taxation that supported all religious groups’ classifications instead. Henry then declined reelection to the governorship, giving reasons for health problems. On June sixth, 1799, Patrick Henry was announced dead at the age of 63 in the Red Hill Plantation. As Henry was about to take his seat in the state legislature, but died three months before this prior from suffering from stomach cancer.

Works Cited
Keene, Jennifer D.

Visions of America: A History of the United States, Black and White Version. Place of Publication Not Identified: Prentice Hall, 2013.

Evans, Emory G., and Richard R. Beeman. "Patrick Henry: A Biography." The William and Mary Quarterly: 531.

Sandham, William E.. 1926. "Patrick Henry, Orator, Statesman and Patriot. For Whom Henry County, Ill., Was Named". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1908-1984) 18 (4). University of Illinois Press: 1039–48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40187141

Matthews, Lloyd J.. 1978. "Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death" Speech and Cassius's Speech in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar."" The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 86 (3). Virginia Historical Society: 299–305. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4248229.

Kukla, Amy, and Jon Kukla. Patrick Henry: Voice of the Revolution. New York: PowerKids Press Books,

2002.