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thing which more than all else has made us what we are, we might well reply, INDEPENDENCE. Independence required union, and union produced, and has been preserved by, our wonderfully wise form of government. Without this, and as colonies, we would have been dwarfed. With it, our fine climate, our rich and varied soil, our great mineral resources, our grand rivers and lakes, our extended ocean shores, have all conspired to produce our highest development, and to give us a place amongst the great powers of the earth, within a period which has not marked the end of infancy in the history of other nations.

Let us then, in this day of retrospect, do all honor to the fathers of the Republic, the patriots who pledged their fortunes, their lives, and their sacred honor in the maintenance of their liberties, and also, in resisting British oppression, established the Independence of their country.

In selecting the name of Patrick Henry as worthy of peculiar honor in these days of Revolutionary memories, we would not disparage any other. Indeed, justice to one is justice to all; for distinctly to understand what one accomplished enables us to appreciate the labors of others. It is only proposed to refer to a few of the occasions on which Patrick Henry was conspicuous; but we have selected those on which his wonderful foresight, his matchless eloquence and undaunted courage rescued the cause of his country from imminent peril, and gave direction to its glorious future as an independent nation.

The War of Independence was fought to maintain a principle, the great distinguishing principle of the British Constitution, tersely expressed in the sentence, "Taxation and representation are inseparable." The British King and Parliament claimed the right to levy taxes on the American colonies; the colonies claimed that they were not represented in Parliament, and ought not to be taxed by that body. This was the great issue upon which they took up arms and appealed to the God of battles.

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work of George Buchanan, "De Jure Regni," described by the Earl of Chatham as “a volume small in bulk but big in matter, containing even all the length and breadth and depth and height of that great argument, which the first geniuses and master-spirits of the human race have asserted so nobly." He had been followed by John Milton, and John Locke, and Algernon Sidney, names ever memorable in the history of British freedom. The colonists therefore claimed no new rights; they claimed only what they had brought with them when they settled America under royal charters. Of these discussions of colonial rights the most notable occurred in Massachusetts and Virginia.

In 1761 the officers of the crown applied to the Judges of Massachusetts for Writs of Assistance, or general search warrants, to aid them in the collection of the duties imposed by Great Britain on the commerce of the colony. The motion was resisted by James Otis, in a speech of great eloquence and power, in which he boldly argued that "no act of Parliameut can establish such a writ; though it should be made in the very words of the petition, it would be void. An act against the Constitution is void." Notwithstanding, in 1762, when the Governor and Council of Massachusetts had undertaken to expend money not voted by the Assembly, Otis again protested, and claimed for the Colonial Assembly the right to raise and apply money for the colony. In 1763 the colony of Virginia was greatly agitated by a contest in which the clergy of the Established Church resisted an Act of Assembly reducing their salaries, which Act had been disapproved by the king. The trial of the cause discovered for the first time the wonderful genius of Patrick Henry, the advocate who maintained the validity of the law. The orator of Virginia advanced a bowshot beyond the orator of Massachusetts. With an eloquence to himself unknown before that day, but which has become indelibly impressed on the page of his country's history since, he maintained "that a king, by disallowing acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience ;" and he distinctly claimed that the only authority which could give force to laws for the government of the colony was that of a Colonial Assembly and Governor. (See moirs of a Huguenot Family," page 418, where

"Me

James Maury, the defeated parson, gives an account tranquility. (See "Documents relating to Color ai of the trial.)

This was sounding the very keynote of the Revolution, and is the first utterance we have of the man who may be called the embodiment of the Revolutionary spirit.

When the colonies learned, therefore, in 1764, of the purpose of Parliament to levy a direct tax upon them, they were not ignorant of their rights, nor slow to assert them. The town of Boston, in May, in instructions to their representatives, drawn by Samuel Adams, asked that the colonial agent in London should be required, while he set forth their loyality, their dependence on Great Britain, and their obedience to necessary regulations of trade, to remonstrate against the proposed tax as annihilating the charter right to govern and tax, and as striking at privileges held in common with fellow-subjects who were natives of Britain. The Assemblies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia forwarded remonstrances against the proposed tax, setting out more or less distinctly their charter rights. But remonstrance proved unavailing. In February, 1765, the act fixing stamp duties upon paper to be used in the colonies, passed the House of Commons, with an opposition respectable in talent but insignificant in numbers, and in March it passed the House of Lords without one opposing voice, and soon after received the assent of an insane King, acting through a commission.

Intelligence of the passage of the act soon reached America, and produced the utmost consternation. Great reliance had been placed on the united petitions and remonstrances of the colonies, and when these failed they knew not what to do but to submit to the seemingly unalterable determination of ministry and Parliament. The colonial agents in England, Dr. Franklin amongst the number, had no thought but of submission, and made recommendations of their friends in America to the offices created by the act. Resistance, indeed, was rebellion, and no one was bold enough to organize rebellion or openly to urge it. The Legislature of Pennsylvania was in session when tidings of the passage of the act reached Philadelphia, but they adjourned without taking any notice of it. (Gordon's "History of Pennsylvania," page 433.) After the intelligence reached New York, Lieutenant-Governor Colden wrote to the Earl of Halifax, one of the ministry, that the colony of New York continued in perfect

History of New York," Volume VII., page ic The leading spirit in New England was Jans Otis, who had been the chief writer against the Stamp Act before its passage. He, however, admitted the power of Parliament to enact it, and counseled submission. He repelled the dea "that the continent of America was about to become insurgent." "It is the duty of ail," he said, "humbly and silently to acquiesce in all the decisions of the Supreme Legislature. Nine butdred and ninety-nine in a thousand of the colonist will never once entertain a thought but of submission to our Sovereign and to the authority of Parliament in all possible contingencies. They undoubtedly have the right to levy internal tates on the colonies." (Hutchinson's "History of Massachusetts," Volume II., pp. 119 and 133, 1 d writings of Otis, quoted by Bancroft, Vol. V., 271.) He still clung to the idea that petitions would effect the repeal of the obnoxious act, and on the 6:0 of June, 1765, he prevailed on the Massachusetts Legislature to propose a congress, to be compesed of delegates from all the colonies, to meet in New York in October following, to "consult together on the present circumstances of the colonies, and the difficulties to which they are and must be reduced by the operation of the acts of Parliament for levying duties and taxes on the colonies, and to consider of a general and united, dutiful, loyal and humble representation of their condition to his Majesty and to the Parliament, and to implore relief." This, the only action of the Massachusetts Assembly at that session, shows that submissca had been determined on in this the leading colony in New England, for as the act went into operation on the 1st of November, it would be impossible for the petitions of the proposed congress to be transmitted to England, and be acted on in time to prevent the act from taking effect. The colony of New Jersey at first declined even this harmless proposal, and the colony of South Carolina, on the 2d of August, was the first to accede to it. On the 19th of September the Assembly of Connecticut appointed delegates, her inhabitants at first being careless of the consequences of the act. (See Gordon's "America," Vol. I., page 117.) When the congress met most of the colonies were represented, but events had occurred which had completely changed the temper of the people.

A general disposition for submission had a

first manifested itself in Virginia. The leading men in the colony, though nobly protesting against the proposed act, had no thought of resisting it as a law, and Richard Henry Lee, who had penned two of the petitions of the session of 1764, taking strong ground in favor of colonial rights, actually sought the position of distributor of stamps for Virginia, in order, he said, to render the law as little onerous as possible. All the colonies in fact at first either gave no indication of their purpose, or indicated their readiness to pay the tax. Indeed, what Massachusetts and Virginia did not propose to do, no other colony ever seems to have attempted, during all the early period of the Revolution. When they prepared for submission, no other colony thought of resistance.

The fate of America appeared to be fixed. Had the tax been submitted to once, the principle involved would have been yielded, and once yielded would have been irretrievably lost. This was realized by the American patriots, and by no one more distinctly than by John Adams, who has left on record his conviction. The destiny of America, however, had been otherwise ordered by a kind Providence.

On the journal of the Virginia House of Burgesses for the 1st of May, 1765, is the following entry, "Ordered that an address be made to the Governour, to order a new writ to issue for electing a Burgess in this present General Assembly for the County of Louisa, in the room of Mr. William Johnson, who hath accepted of the office of Coroner of the said county." The appointment of Mr. William Johnson to the office of Coroner of Louisa County was an occurrence, one would think, of no moment in itself, of small interest even to the County of Louisa, and of no consequence to the balance of the world. In truth, however, this entry in the journal tells of an incident which in its consequences has affected the history of our race beyond all estimate.

Had

it not occurred, the Stamp Act would have been enforced in the American Colonies, and the birth of the United States as a nation would have been indefinitely postponed. The vacancy thus made in the Virginia House of Burgesses was filled by the election of Patrick Henry, who took his seat on the 20th of May, eleven days before the close of the session. He was twenty-nine years of age, of no experience in public life, ignorant of the rules of the body, and unac

quainted with its members. He was poor, and plainly dressed, and represented a plain farming constituency. But he had an intellect of the highest order, a spirit which could not brook tyranny, and a tongue which seemed as though touched by celestial fire. He found the Assembly under the influence of leaders who were capable of leading in any body however intellectual. Peyton Randolph, the Attorney-General, Richard Bland, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton and Richard Henry Lee controlled the body. They had determined to submit to the Stamp Act, and to make the best of it. Mr. Henry waited from the 20th to the 29th of May, hoping that some one would propose opposition to the detested tax, but he waited in vain. Three days only remained of the session; and he determined to venture alone. To the great astonishment of the leaders of the body, on Wednesday the 29th, he arose in his place and moved "that the House resolve itself into committee of the whole House immediately, to consider of the steps necessary to be taken in consequence of the resolutions of the House of Commons of Great Britain, relative to the charging certain Stamp Duties in the Colonies and Plantations in America." Before they recovered from their surprise at this unexpected move, the House had agreed to the motion, and the new member was reading from the blank leaf of an old "Coke upon Littleton," a series of resolutions against the Stamp Act, so bold and so directly leading to resistance that they instantly determined to defeat them, if indeed any one of influence could be found to advocate them. But the surprise of these accomplished leaders soon became mingled with alarm, as the rustic member began to lay aside his rusticity, and with unequaled grace to pour forth in advocacy of his resolutions a stream of eloquence which far surpassed all that had been ever heard in that hall. When he sat down it had become necessary to exert their whole strength in reply. In the language of Mr. Jefferson, who witnessed it, "the debate became most bloody." The old leaders had been justly surprised and alarmed, but these feelings were soon succeeded by anger and mortification, when at the close of the debate they found themselves beaten, and the treasonable resolutions carried against their united efforts. Especially was Randolph the Attorney-General chagrined, when it became his duty to report to

the House the resolutions agreed to in Committee of the Whole, and to "read them in his place." No sooner was the action of the committee known than the resolutions offered were copied and sent off to Philadelphia, and from that point were forwarded in different directions. In New York they were considered so treasonable that no one would print them. An Irish gentleman, from Connecticut, happening to be in the city, with difficulty obtained a copy, which he carried to New England, where they were printed and circulated without reserve, and were received by all parties as the determination of Virginia in favor of resistance. Mr. Henry left a copy of these famous resolutions amongst his papers in the following words:

"Resolved, That the first adventurers and settlers of this his Majesty's colony and dominion, brought with them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other his Majesty's subjects, since inhabiting in this his Majesty's said colony, all the privileges, franchises and immunities, that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Britain.

Resolved, That by two royal charters, granted by King James the First, the colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to all privileges, liberties, and immunities of denizens and natural-born subjects, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the realm of England

Resolved, That the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, and the easiest mode of raising them, and are equally affected by such taxes themselves, is the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without which the ancient constitution cannot subsist.

Resolved, That his Majesty's liege people of this most ancient colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed by their own Assembly, in the article of their taxes and internal police, and that the same hath never been forfeited, or any other way given up, but hath been constantly recognized by the King and people of Great Britain.

Resolved, therefore, That the General Assembly of this colony have the sole 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."

Two additional resolutions containing strong deductions from these principles were sent to Philadelphia; but if adopted in Committee of the Whole, they failed to pass the House. The effect of these resolutions was astonishing. Associations were immediately formed to resist the act. Everywhere, from North to South-through the press, in letters, and as they met by fireside or roadside

the patriots discussed their grievances and planned redress. On the 8th of August the names of the stamp distributors were published, but the enraged people determined they should never ar On the 14th of August in Boston, a mob attackzi the house of Mr. Oliver the distributor for Mis sachusetts, and forced him to resign. Similar outbreaks followed in other colonies, and by the Ist of November, the day fixed for the law to take effect, no one was left in America who would dare to act under it. The Governors and tax agents reported to the authorities in England, that it had become impossible to enforce the tax, and they attributed the condition of things to the Virginia resolutions. One wrote, "The fire began in Virginia ;" another, "Virginia rang the alarm bell;" a third, "Virginia gave the signal for the continent." (See Bancroft's "United States," Voi. V., page 278.) A New York correspondent of Mr. Secretary Conway wrote on the 23d of September. 1765: "The resolves of the Assembly of Virgin which you will have seen, gave the signal of a general outcry over the continent, and though I do not find that the Assembly of any other province has yet come to resolutions of the same tendency. they have been applauded as protectors and as sertors of American liberty." (See Par. "History of England," Volume XVI., page 123.) Governor Hutchinson in his "History of Massachusetts" (Vol. II., page 119, edition of 1827), wrote: "The first act of the assemblies against the authority of the act of Parliament was in Virginia. These resolutions were expressed in such terms that many people upon the first surprise pronounced them treasonable, particularly Mr. Otis, one of the representatives of Boston, in the hearing of many persons in King street." Burke, in his great speech upon American taxation before Par liament in 1774, attributes the resistance which

defeated the tax to the Virginia resolutions; and
Hutchinson and Gordon, cotemporary historians
of the Revolution, unite in the same statement,
and all agree that the resistance to the Stamp Act
in 1765 brought on the American Revolution.
Mr. Henry, so careless of his own fame, seems to
to have desired posterity to remember him by
these resolves. On the back of the copy lett
with his will, he wrote: "The within resolutions
passed the House of Burgesses in May, 1765.
They formed the first opposition to the Stamp Act,
and the scheme of taxing America by the British
Parliament. All the colonies, either through fear
or want of opportunity to form an opposition, or
from influence of some kind or other, had re-
mained silent. I had been for the first time
elected a burgess a few days before, was young,
inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms of
the House, and the members that composed it.
Finding the men of weight averse to opposition,
and the commencement of the tax at hand, and
that no person was likely to step forth, I deter-
mined to venture, and alone, unadvised and
unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old law-book,
wrote the within. Upon offering them to the
House violent debates ensued. Many threats were
uttered, and much abuse cast on me by the party
for submission. After a long and warm contest
the resolutions passed by a very small majority,
perhaps of one or two only. The alarm spread
throughout America with astonishing quickness,
and the ministerial party were overwhelmed. The
great point of resistance to British taxation was
universally established in the colonies. This
brought on the war, which finally separated the
two countries, and gave independence to ours.
Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse will
depend on the use our people make of the bless-
ings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us.
If they are wise, they will be happy. If they are
of a contrary character, they will be miserable.
Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation.
Reader! whoever thou art, remember this; and
in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, and encourage
it in others:
P. HENRY."

Adams, who was then alive, and, as he expressed it, was "jealous, very jealous of the honor of Massachusetts." Mr. Adams claimed that James Otis was better entitled to the credit of commencing the Revolution. We have seen that Mr. Otis surrendered the very principle for which the War of the Revolution was fought, and actually denounced Henry's resolutions, and surely this would be a sufficient answer; but, fortunately, a more conclusive reply to Mr. Adams is at hand. In 1776, while the Virginia Convention was framing a Constitution for the State, the first written | Constitution, it is said, any State ever had, Mr. Adams wrote to Mr. Henry, who was a prominent member of that body. The letter is dated 3d June, 1776, and may be found in Volume IX. of "The Life and Works of John Adams," at page 386. In referring to the proposed Constitution, Mr. Adams says: "The subject is of infinite moment, and perhaps more than adequate to the abilities of any man in America. I know of none so competent to the task as the author of the first Virginia resolutions against the Stamp Act, who will have the glory with posterity of beginning and concluding this great revolution. Happy Virginia, whose Constitution is to be framed by so masterly a builder!''

But it may be confidently claimed for Patrick Henry that on another occasion he decided the fate of Independence when it was in imminent danger of being lost forever. During the session of the Continental Congress of 1774, Joseph Galloway, of Pennsylvania, who seemed to have been a disguised Tory, proposed a plan of union between Great Britain and the Colonies, which was artfully drawn so as to prevent Independence. He proposed a British-American Legislature, to be composed of members selected from the Colonies and from Great Britain, which should pass on all laws affecting the Colonies. The plan had the approval of the British authorities beyond doubt, and had it been adopted would have effectually prevented Independence. Had it been approved by the Congress, it would have been ratified by the Colonies, for very few had a thought at that time of asserting Independence. This plan of settlement was defeated by a close vote, only one majority appearing against it.

This claim for Patrick Henry, that he was the first, not to announce the principles of the Revolution, but to take steps to resist the Stamp Act after its passage, and that he thereby brought on John Adams, in his diary, published in his "Life the Revolution, was made by Mr. Wirt in his and Works" (see Vol. II., 387–91), has left a "Life of Henry," and was controverted by John | report of the debate on this proposal. From this

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