73 lines
3.9 KiB
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73 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
Newsgroups: freenet.shrine.songs
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From: aa300 (Jerry Murphy)
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Subject: Patrick Henry, biography
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Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 15:51:52 EST
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Henry, Patrick
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The American political leader Patrick Henry was the most celebrated orator of
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the American Revolution. He was born on May 29, 1736, in Hanover County,
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Virginia. Henry failed as both a storekeeper and a farmer before being admitted
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to the Virginia bar in 1760. However, he won fame in 1763 after his impassioned
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pleading in the Parsons' Cause, a case in which he defended the right of the
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colony to fix the price of the tobacco in which the clergy were paid, despite a
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contrary ruling from London.
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When Henry entered the House of Burgesses in 1765, he and Richard Henry Lee
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successfully compelled the entrenched oligarchy to share power with them.
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Henry's effectiveness as an orator gave him a commanding influence in the
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legislature throughout his life. After the passage of the Stamp Act (1765) he
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introduced a set of radical resolutions denouncing the British Parliament's
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usurpation of powers vested in the colonial legislature, which alone had the
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power to tax. He supported the resolves in a speech ending "Caesar had his
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Brutus--Charles the first his Cromwell--and George III--may he profit from their
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example." Widely circulated throughout the colonies, the resolves made Henry
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famous.
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Henry was the focal point of Virginia's opposition to British policy. When the
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royal governor, Lord Dunmore, dissolved the Virginia legislature after the
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closing of the port of Boston in 1774, Henry organized a rump session of the
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legislature, which met in the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg. It issued an
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invitation to the other colonies to send delegates to a Continental Congress. As
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a member of the Congress, Henry was an outspoken advocate of strong measures of
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resistance. At a meeting of the Virginia assembly in Richmond on Mar. 23, 1775,
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he called on the colonists to arm themselves, with the words: "Give me liberty,
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or give me death." Soon after, he led the militia of Hanover to force Governor
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Dunmore to surrender munitions belonging to the colony.
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With the outbreak of the Revolution, Henry became commander in chief of the
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Virginia troops, but he was prevented from actively exercising his command by
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state leaders who considered him too erratic. He continued in the legislature,
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fostering the move for independence and helping draft the first state constitu-
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tion. In June 1776 he was elected governor. In this position, which he held till
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1779, he vigorously supported the war effort, dispatching George Rogers Clark to
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secure the western regions. After the war Henry's influence in the legislature
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tended to be sporadic because of his habit of leaving before the end of the
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session. He astonished his contemporaries by advocating state support of
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religion and amnesty for Loyalists.
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Henry served as governor again from 1784 to 1786 but declined to attend the
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Constitutional Convention of 1787. An ardent supporter of state rights, he led
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the Virginia opposition to ratification of the federal Constitution, losing the
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vote by a small margin. His hostility to centralized government and to measures
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favoring commercial interests led him initially to protest the Federalist
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program of the Washington administration. As the years passed, however, his fear
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that the radicalism of the French Revolution would infect the nation brought him
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to support the Federalist party. Just before his death, on June 6, 1799, he was
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elected to the state legislature as a Federalist.
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HARRY AMMON
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Beeman, Richard - PATRICK HENRY (1974)
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Henry, William Wirt - PATRICK HENRY: LIFE, CORRESPONDENCE, AND SPEECHES,
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3 vols. (1891)
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Mead, Robert Douthat - PATRICK HENRY, 2 vols. (1957-62).
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'Copyright 1987, Grolier Inc, Academic American Encyclopedia,
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Electronic Version'
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USED BY PERMISSION, granted January 9, 1988
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