Meet the Author
Patrick Henry
American · 1736–1799 · Orator and Virginia governor
Portrait: George Bagby Matthews (1857 - 1943), after Thomas Sully (1783-1872), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A Virginia lawyer and orator of the American Revolution, remembered for a 1775 speech known today only through a later reconstruction.
1 StoryBites Edition1 Speech or essay
Why read Patrick Henry?
No one wrote down Henry’s speech as he gave it, so the version we read comes from William Wirt’s 1817 biography, which rebuilt it decades later from the memories of listeners. Even so, it is a model of persuasive structure: courtesy to opponents, a run of pointed questions, and a final choice between liberty and death. Read it for its rhetoric, knowing that some of the exact words may be Wirt’s.
A life in six dates
- 1736Born in Hanover County, Virginia
- 1763Wins fame arguing the Parson’s Cause
- 1765Introduces resolutions against the Stamp Act in the House of Burgesses
- 1775Gives his liberty or death speech at St. John’s Church, Richmond
- 1776Becomes the first governor of the state of Virginia
- 1788Opposes ratification of the U.S. Constitution at the Virginia convention
- 1799Dies at Red Hill, his Virginia plantation
Themes across the work
The StoryBites Editions
Context that actually matters
The Second Virginia ConventionDelegates met at St. John’s Church in Richmond in March 1775, and Henry spoke for putting Virginia in a state of defense.
William Wirt’s biographySketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry (1817) is the source of the speech as it is known today, published more than 40 years after Henry spoke.
The Anti-FederalistsHenry later opposed the new Constitution, arguing that it gave too much power to the national government.