Liberty or Death

Lloyd Dobyns: Hi, welcome to Colonial Williamsburg: Past & Present on history.org. This is "Behind the Scenes" where you meet the people who work here. That's my job. I'm Lloyd Dobyns, and mostly I ask questions.

Richard Schumann: Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? 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!”

Lloyd: When Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty, or give me death," it became a rallying cry of the Revolution. This March brings the anniversary of that iconic speech, and Richard Schumann, who portrays Henry at Colonial Williamsburg, is here to talk to us about a speech so well constructed, it's still quoted today.

Actually, it's one of the better-known speeches of that period, if not the best known of that period.

Richard: Yes, it is. And frankly, I was tickled and very pleased to see in a book called "The 100 Greatest Poems" that Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death" was number 100.

Lloyd: Give us a background. What's going on in the colonies now when Henry makes his speech?

Richard: It's March of 1775. The Intolerable Acts and the Boston Port Bill especially have been in effect for several months already. Things are bleak in Massachusetts, especially in the town of Boston. One out of every five people in that place is a British soldier. They're quartered in private dwellings in the city. The port's closed, so people are starving. Everyone in Boston relies upon the harbor to get things and have their livelihoods for trade. So that's all shut down.

Meanwhile, it's becoming more and more clear to observers like Mr. Henry that the British are strengthening themselves in this country. They're sending more troops over. It's very clear to Mr. Henry, based upon his views of history, that war is coming. It's inevitable. He says to the men in the convention there – this is the Second Virginia Convention – "Based on what we've seen over these last few months, it's coming. And what do we have to oppose them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we've been trying that for these last 10 years! We've got to fight. And so, we've got to place ourselves into a posture of defense."

So, in the town church in Richmond – which is where they're meeting because that's the largest building in that small trading village that can accommodate the 120 men in attendance at the convention – he puts forth a resolution calling for Virginia to form into a defensive posture. He has, as part of his resolution, that a well-regulated militia is the surest and best form, the last form of defense for a free society. If we have this militia, well, the British won't be able to tax us anymore because they can't use that claim that they're only taxing us to pay for the soldiers they have here. So, it'll end the problem.

Of course, in that convention, there are a lot of men: great, weighty, and influential men who are opposed to it. I'm talking Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland of Prince George County, Robert Carter Nicholas, Edmund Pendleton. These are heavy hitters. They're arguing, "No, let's not do this. If we form up, if we just even form up these independent companies you're proposing, Mr. Henry, the British are going to view that as a hostile or aggressive action. Rather than keeping an invasion that you're predicting at bay, we'll be fighting them here. We're going to have the same calamity that they have in Boston right now. No, no, no. We're not going to do this."

By the way, the house is very evenly divided right now. Henry's got his supporters, but the other fellows have a bit more. So Mr. Henry's sitting there, and he's thinking, "Hmm. I've got to do something to persuade a majority of men over to my side so that we can pass this resolution and get things started." That's when he desires to be recognized. He takes to the floor and delivers forth those words.

There are eyewitnesses who document the results. I flatter myself in thinking that they're very often the same today after I do the whole speech. That is, there's like stunned silence for what seems like an eternity. It's probably only five seconds. But then: pandemonium. That was the case in the church that day and around the church, too. There was one man in fact, a man by the name of Carrington, who exclaimed, "By God, let me be buried on this spot where I heard Mr. Henry speak them words." And 30 years later, he got his wish.

The vote, by the way, was taken shortly thereafter. By a slim margin of only five votes – that's out of 120 – the resolution passed.

Lloyd: Patrick Henry developed part of his speaking style from a Protestant minister.

Richard: Yes.

Lloyd: Can you see that in the "Liberty or Death" speech?

Richard: You absolutely can. In fact, Patrick Henry – unbeknownst to many people today – was an extremely religious man, Orthodox Christian. He read the Bible constantly. He very often will lift scripture and insert it into his rhetoric. There's one point there, near the end as he's building in this crescendo, where he says, "Gentlemen may cry 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace. The war is actually begun." That's lifted right out of the book of Jeremiah.

Lloyd: Really?

Richard: Absolutely. You also see not only the religious aspect from the Reverend Samuel Davies, who's that Presbyterian influence in Mr. Henry's life, but you also see the lawyer. He's building an argument. It's very logical. He begins calmly and measuredly, he states the facts, and then levels the boom.

Lloyd: So there are at least two levels there. I would argue there might be a third in that not many people have the rhetorical ability to build this speech – from anything – quite that well. Because if you're building it in a lawyerly way so that you have a statement of fact and then you build to this, you know, what he wants you to remember as the point, well, that's what we remember.
 
Richard: That's right. The 18th-century people were a lot more familiar with good rhetoric, and the beginning, middle, and end. Some of his colleagues and contemporaries even commented on it.

There's a lot of controversy, too, about whether he actually said that speech that we all know so well. He didn't write it down; he didn't write any of his orations down. The "Liberty or Death" speech was crafted about 35 years after the fact. After Patrick Henry died, a man named William Wirt took it upon himself to become the biographer, the first biographer of Patrick Henry. He wrote letters to all the people still living who had seen Henry in action and said, "Send me back your accounts."

There were two men, specifically: St. George Tucker, one of our own Williamsburg boys and Judge John Tyler, of Charles City County, a good friend of Patrick Henry's. Both were present and commented upon that particular speech. They put their recollections down. Now again, this is 35 years after the fact. Then you also have to figure that perhaps William Wirt, who was a good writer himself, took a little bit of poetic license here and there – maybe tuned it up or something. The two accounts, and these two men were working independently of one another, are remarkably consistent.

Lloyd: Even if it were tuned, to use your word, a little bit, the sentiment was the same.

Richard: Absolutely.

Lloyd: Whether it was exactly those words or maybe one or two words off, what difference does it make?

Richard: I think that most historians and scholars and skeptics would all agree that at least that last line, "liberty or death," is what he actually said. There were accounts of it that started going throughout the rest of the colonies. You've got to remember the effect of that particular oration spread like a wildfire throughout the rest of the American colonies.

It was the first call to arms heard around the country. It so inspired people in other parts of the United States, that as far north as Rhode Island, soldiers began to form. They too, like most Virginia fighting men, were sewing or stitching "liberty or death" upon the breast of their hunting shirts, employing it as a battle cry. The sentiments, as you say, were certainly as we have today.

Lloyd: Henry had a bit of a reputation for being a hothead. At what point in that speech would that have hurt him or helped him?

Richard: Hmm. I think because he was so smart, so brilliant, he wouldn't allow his reputation to get into the way of his persuasion. I say that because for someone who looks very carefully at the entire speech, he begins very logically, calmly, certainly not the hothead.

He builds his case as a lawyer would do, in such a way that even his detractors had to admit, "You know, he's right. He's speaking the truth." I don't think it hindered him at all. He gets his audience – in that case, the gentlemen in the convention – so convinced that, based upon the facts and history, of which he is a great student of, that it's coming. What are you going to do? He puts it on them, in other words. So they eventually arrived at the inevitable conclusion.

Lloyd: Which you obviously think is the correct conclusion for the moment.

Richard: I certainly think so. You know, this speech – I hate to call it a speech – this rhetoric is still timeless and relevant to today. I remember that, I guess it was back in 2003, before we'd gone into Iraq when half the country was, "We've got to go," and half the country was, "We shouldn't go." I read that speech, and even though I knew it, I read it. I looked at it. Everywhere that Mr. Henry was using the words "the king," or, "the ministry," or, "parliament," if you substituted those words for "Saddam Hussein," "al Qaida," "The United Nations," it'd curl your hair. It was just so relevant to the choices that had to be made at that time.

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