Liberty vs. Death – Patrick Henry
By Brian Kirwin | Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 | PolicyToday in 1775, in St. John’s Church in Richmond, over 100 Virginia Colonial legislators were meeting.
So much for separation of church and state, eh?
King George III had declared the colonies in rebellion, and had seized all the gunpowder in Williamsburg. Patrick Henry led a militia in resistance, and the Crown was forced to acquiesce.
Patrick Henry took to floor to implore his fellow Virginians to take action, that the time to hope for negotiation was over, that we either live free or die in slavery.
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
That’s the quote most widely known. The public schools have long since erased the references to God while immortalizing the final sentence. I always thought the scrubbing of religion from our Revolution was and is an unforgivable offense.
Henry’s speech, given in a church, is replete with religion.
He calls silence an “act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven” and refers to God multiple times.
The entire speech is here, but I have a few other choice quotes that I’ve always liked.
“Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope.”
Patrick Henry explains Obama over 200 years prior! He’s Nostrodamus!
“Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.”
Next time, the ACLU tells you how secular are government was supposed to be, throw a biography of Patrick Henry at them.
“There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free– if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained–we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!”
Amazing. Simply amazing.
“They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger?… Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?”
Patrick Henry didn’t pull punches. Henry’s call to arms was key to the passage of a resolution sending Virginia troops into the Revolutionary War.
Today, we celebrate Liberty.
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About the author
The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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10 Responses to "Liberty vs. Death – Patrick Henry"
Harlow Giles Unger recently published a great one volume biography on Patrick Henry, probably one of Virginia’s greatest and most misunderstood Founding Fathers (perhaps next to George Mason or John Taylor).
Here here. It’s for ideals like this that I fight some of the battles I do today.
The phrase “separation of church and state” was actually coined by President Thomas Jefferson in 1802 in a letter to the Danbury, Connecticut, Baptist Association. It is not contained anywhere in the Constitution.
The Constitution is not anti-religion. The Establishment Clause merely states that the Federal government will not adopt or establish an official state religion. As with all of the Bill of Rights amendments, this was adopted to prevent the abuses of the British government whereby the Church of England was the official religion of the kingdom and everyone was required to tithe to it, regardless of your religious beliefs.
I agree with BK and find it sad that our public education system has either overtly or inadvertently purged from our children’s education the rich and important role that churches and religion played in the lives of our Founders. Teaching that our Founders believed that they were following Divine Providence is hardly a violation of the Establishment Clause. Quite the opposite, not teaching it is revisionism of the worst sort.
BTW, my favorite revolutionary quote is Ben Franklin who said, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” I wonder how many teenagers today know the origin of that expression when they tell someone that they want to “hang together” at the mall.
Schools should all be private. The religious right can send their kids to school where they say a prayer before tests while offending no one, the left can send their kids to school where they practice putting condoms on each other and they cut down their carbon footprints by holding their breath while offending no one, and the libertarians can send their kids to school where there’s a 600-yard rifle range out back for “gym” class while frightening no one. No one would be fighting about god in school, or condoms in school, or guns in school. Let people make choices and the fighting stops. Imagine! How radical!
Parents would be responsible for their own children’s education. Everyone would have a direct stake in their own children’s lives instead of handing off responsibility to the nanny state. Parents would get to keep their money instead of having it taxed away, the government would be smaller with fewer bureaucrats. Citizens would have more choice. Home schoolers would love my plan.
The educationists would have to actually justify their existence. Bloated, top-heavy, overqualified and useless (and salary-heavy) education hierarchies could exist if people were willing to voluntarily pay for them; I’m betting they wouldn’t be. Parents could get what they wanted. Imagine such a system where parents bought the education they wanted for their own children, and for no one else’s.
I’m also ready to predict that few if any here will like this plan. You see, for neocons it’s not about choice, it’s about control. The mainstream left and right both love Leviathan, they only argue about how it is to be used.
Prove me wrong, please.
freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom
- F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
My strong suggestion is that you guys read Henry’s speeches in the Virginia Ratification Debates.
http://www.constitution.org/afp/phenry00.htm
Here, for example, are some of Mr. Henry’s thoughts on treaties. This applies directly to “UNSCR’s” taking precedence over our Constitution:
Treaties were to have more force here than in any part of Christendom; for he defied any gentleman to show any thing so extensive in any strong, energetic government in Europe. Treaties rest, says he, on the laws and usages of nations. To say that they are municipal is, to me, a doctrine totally novel. To make them paramount to the Constitution and laws of the states, is unprecedented.
It is easy on our part to define our unalienable rights, and expressly secure them, so as to prevent future claims and disputes. Suppose you be arraigned as offenders and violators of a treaty made by this government. Will you have that fair trial which offenders are entitled to in your own government? Will you plead a right to the trial by jury? You will have no right to appeal to your own Constitution. You must appeal to your Continental Constitution. A treaty may be made giving away your rights, and inflicting unusual punishments on its violators.
Start thinking about how the U.N. can be used to take away your Second Amendment rights and your freedom of religion. Then tell me about how much respect I’m supposed to have for UNSCRs.
Jamie Jacoby,
On public education, I can hardly disagree with you. I was educated in private schools through my undergraduate degree with the exception of four years in public high school. It was by far the most mediocre educational experience I had and damned near cost me entrance to a top-flight college. Fortunately, an admissions director took pity on me because of my high test scores, but I struggled mightily my first semester to catch up. By the end of my second year I was on a full scholarship. I have a nephew and nieces who all graduated from top-flight colleges and went on to graduate programs. But they attended private boarding schools at the expense of their parents, above and beyond the property taxes they paid for the public schools.
I would be in favor of private schools only under two conditions: first, that there be some sort of public financed voucher system to ensure that all children receive a primary and secondary education. This is a societal responsibility that all of us must meet. Second, that all schools must be accredited by a competent oversight body.
On the UNSCRs, relax. The UN can grant authority, but cannot require action of the member states. There are 192 member nations in the UN. There are only a handful who are conducting military action against Libya. Additionally, the SCOTUS has ruled on more than one occasion that Congress does not have the authority to ratify treaties or international agreements that violate the US Constitution. Don’t worry. The blue-helmeted troops are not coming to seize our guns, the NRA- and GOA-generated nonsense to the contrary.
Feel better now?
HisRoc,
SCOTUS has ruled on more than one occasion that Congress does not have the authority to ratify treaties or international agreements that violate the US Constitution.
Thanks for the enlightenment. I’d love to read rulings. Got any specifics? Google might not be up to this. This reference of mine was to another poster in another thread who keeps drawing the UNSCRs like a pistol, as if they mean something.
Re: This is a societal responsibility that all of us must meet.
Once this door is opened, the total remainder of politics is reduced to a bidding war for a share of what I produce. Everything that anyone wants or “needs” and doesn’t have becomes a “societal responsibility” or even worse, a “right.” I am, on that basis, unwilling to admit the principle. Economics is about how things get made. Politics is about who gets to keep them. This “responsibility” or “right,” being redistributive, kicks in the door on property rights. Property rights are fundamental to our system. Or, they were.
FDR:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
Jamie,
Here is some light reading on the history of the SCOTUS and Constitutional limits on the treaty power.
http://supreme.justia.com/constitution/article-2/19-constitutional-limitations-on-treaty-power.html
As for FDR, this was one of the many things that he got totally ass-backwards. A responsibility of good citizenship does confer a right on the intended receiver. That equates charity to taxation and human kindness to social justice.
Very interesting reading, thank you very much. It’s especially interesting in light of the very recent Heller, which, AFAIK, is the first ruling to overtly state that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right and not one associated with militia service.
From the article:
“It need hardly be said that a treaty cannot change the Constitution or be held valid if it be in violation of that instrument.”
If that’s true, then up until Heller it WOULD have been a viable strategy to bypass the second amendment through treaties.
This statement is also interesting:
“It has also been suggested that the prohibitions against governmental action contained in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights particularly, limit the exercise of the treaty power. No doubt this is true, though again there are no cases which so hold.”
“Feel better now?”
I did for a little while, but once again I don’t.
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