Patrick Henry's Liberty or Death Speech
Did the Renowned Virginia Orator Really Say the Familiar Words?
The period of the American Revolution was characterized by memorable words. Both in their writings and in their speeches, the American colonists used words in ways that were both eloquent and persuasive – powerful words that are still remembered and recited today. One can hardly talk about the Revolution without mentioning the Declaration of Independence, The Virginia Declaration of Rights, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and many others. Both historians and the public usually include, among those others, Patrick Henry’s famous words about liberty and death. Unfortunately, there is no reliable evidence that he ever spoke them.
The Text of the Speech
There’s no doubt that Henry did deliver a speech to the Second Virginia Convention, the forerunner of the present House of Delegates. And there’s no doubt that it was fiery – Henry’s reputation as a “son of thunder” was well deserved. But what did he really say? There were no official notes or transcripts made then or later of this or any other of his speeches. And yet the text of this speech has often been published in books and on the web. Where does this text come from?
The Accuracy of the Text
The speech was first published in 1817 – forty-two years after it was delivered. It appeared in a biography of Henry by William Wirt, a Richmond, Virginia, lawyer who had just been appointed to the position of United States Attorney General. Wirt acknowledged that he was relying primarily on the recollections of a judge, St. George Tucker, who had in fact been present at Henry’s speech, but who had taken no notes and was himself relying only on his memory of words he had heard some four decades before. It is possible, even probable, that Judge Tucker remembered the gist of the speech, and the impression it made on him; but it is impossible to believe that he would have been able to remember Henry’s actual words so many years later.
What Henry May Have Said
It appears, then, that either St. George Tucker, or William Wirt, or both, in effect fabricated Patrick Henry’s words – not from any desire to deceive, perhaps, but simply from a wish to preserve some details of what they regarded as a momentous occasion. However, what they preserved may not at all resemble either Henry’s words or his sentiments. There is, in fact, one firsthand report of Henry’s speech – it is a letter written by a certain James Parker. In the letter Parker, clearly no admirer of Henry, describes the speech as “infamously insolent.” He says that Henry not only called the king a “tyrant” and a “fool,” but also called the king’s subjects in Great Britain “wretches” who had “lost their native courage.” Such remarks, if they are at all accurate, describe a speech quite different in style and substance from that published by Wirt.
The Importance of Henry's Speech
It will probably never be known just what Patrick Henry really said to the Virginia Convention that day in 1775. Nevertheless, it is what William Wirt says he said that has come down through history as an authentic part of the American patriotic tradition – unquestioned, even by some historians, until relatively recently. But the issues of Patrick Henry’s time – which have a lot to do with the issues of contemporary times – were much more complex than the simple (and false) choice of liberty or death. Patrick Henry was an ardent advocate for liberty, it is true. He was also, like many of the nation's founders, an owner of slaves and a speculator in western lands with a personal financial interest in American independence. To begin to understand the man and his place in American history, less attention should be paid to a few words that he may or may not have said, and more attention to who he was and what he did.
Source:
Raphael, Ray. Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past. New York: The New Press, 2004.
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