Patrick Henry (1736-1799)

Patrick Henry's impressive oratorical powers made him famous in the public life of Virginia and the Colonies. Born in a frontier region of Virginia, Henry was raised in a cultured although modest environment. During his youth, the country was undergoing the religious revival known as the Great Awakening, and young Henry often accompanied his mother to hear the sermons of the great traveling preachers.

As a young man, Henry made several unsuccessful stabs at farming and merchant life before discovering his true calling: the law. In 1765, when he was twenty-nine, he was chosen to represent his region in the Virginia House of Burgesses. His first great speech was a declaration of resistance to the Stamp Act of that year, a form of taxation passed by the British Parliament that required stamps to be used on all newspapers and public documents.

This speech was so successful that Patrick Henry's political fortunes were secured. For the next ten years, he was one of the most powerful figures in Virginia politics.

His famous "liberty or death" speech was made in 1775, when the Colonies were nearing the breaking point. Following the Boston Tea Party in December of 1773, the British had closed the port of Boston and inaugurated other harsh measures referred to by the colonists as the "Intolerable Acts." When the First Continental Congress protested these acts, the British Crown relieved the Colonies of taxation on a number of conditions. One condition was that the colonists fully support British rule and contribute toward the maintenance of British troops in America, whose numbers were increasing greatly. On March 20, 1775, the Virginia House of Burgesses held a convention in St. John's Episcopal Church in Richmond to decide how to respond to the growing British military threat. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both present.

On March 23, after several speeches in favor of compromise with the British, Patrick Henry rose to defend his resolution to take up arms against the British. A clergyman who was present later recalled that during Henry's speech he felt "sick with excitement." As the speech reached its climax, Patrick Henry is said to have grabbed an ivory letter opener and plunged it toward his breast with the word Death.

Henry persuaded the delegation. The Virginia Convention voted to arm its people against England. A few weeks later, on April 19, the battle of Lexington, in Massachusetts, ignited the Revolutionary War. By June 15, the Revolution had been formalized by the raising of an army under General George Washington. On July 4 of the following year, the Declaration of Independence was adopted in Philadelphia.

Although this speech is one of the most famous in all American oratory, no manuscript of it exists. The traditionally accepted text was pieced together by Henry's biographer, William Wirt, forty years after the speech was given.

PERSUASION. Persuasion is a form of speaking or writing that aims to move a particular audience to take action. The goal of persuasion is not merely to win the audience's agreement but also to make the audience act. One of the most powerful examples of persuasion in American literature is Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech. Persuasion, then, is notable for its emphasis on action, the coherence of proof and motive, and a heightened emotional and imaginative style.