Give Me Liberty or Death: Henry's Call to Arms

Patrick Henry delivered his "Give me liberty, or give me death" speech at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, persuading the Virginia Convention to commit troops to the revolutionary cause. His declaration became the most quoted line of the American Revolution and crystallized the colonists' willingness to choose armed conflict over submission to British authority. The speech was delivered on March 23, 1775, to a gathering of Virginia's most prominent political figures, including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Henry was arguing for a resolution to organize the Virginia militia for potential armed conflict with Britain, a measure that moderates in the convention considered premature and reckless. His speech, which built through a catalog of British offenses to the famous peroration, carried the vote. Yet the exact words of the speech are uncertain. No transcript was made at the time, and the version universally quoted today was reconstructed by William Wirt in his 1817 biography of Henry, based on the memories of attendees interviewed decades after the event. Wirt acknowledged he was working from imperfect recollections. Whether or not Henry spoke the precise words attributed to him, the speech had its intended effect: the Virginia Convention approved the militia resolution, and within weeks the battles at Lexington and Concord proved Henry's warnings prophetic. Henry went on to serve as the first and sixth governor of Virginia, but he opposed the Constitution in 1787, arguing that it concentrated too much power in the federal government. His anti-Federalist warnings about executive overreach and the need for a Bill of Rights were vindicated when the first ten amendments were adopted in 1791.