Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry made the Virginia House of Burgesses and the ratification struggle of 1788 into stages for a forceful defense of popular resistance and local liberty.
Born May 29, 1736 / Died June 6, 1799
On May 29, 1736, at Studley in Hanover County, Colony of Virginia, Patrick Henry was born into a middling planter family with legal and clerical connections. He struggled in business but found his vocation in the law and public speaking after obtaining a law license in 1760. His courtroom fame in the Parsons' Cause quickly made him a political force in Virginia.
In the House of Burgesses, Henry introduced the Virginia Resolves against the Stamp Act in 1765 and became one of the most electrifying voices of colonial resistance. His 1775 speech at St. John's Church in Richmond fixed him in Revolutionary memory, and his governorship during the war kept him at the center of Virginia politics. At the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788, he became one of the Constitution's fiercest critics.
Henry's anti-centralizing arguments helped create the pressure that produced the Bill of Rights in 1791. His career also ensured that the language of popular resistance remained central to later American disputes over federal power.
Key Contributions
- Patrick Henry was an American politician, planter and orator who declared to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): "Give me liberty or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786.
- Patrick Henry's public record is closely tied to Constitutional Convention convenes, a named event that defined the period in which Patrick Henry served.
Related Events
Constitutional Convention convenes
From May to September 1787, delegates in Philadelphia abandoned revision of the Articles of Confederation and drafted a new Constitution under George Washington's presidency.
United States Constitution signed
On September 17, 1787, thirty-nine delegates signed the Constitution in Philadelphia and sent the proposed frame of government to the states for ratification.
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