Patrick Henry Part 5

But while the tidings of these resolutions were thus moving toward New England, and before they had arrived there, the a.s.sembly of the great colony of Ma.s.sachusetts had begun to take action. Indeed, it had first met on the very day on which Patrick Henry had introduced his resolutions into the committee of the whole at Williamsburg. On the 8th of June, it had resolved upon a circular letter concerning the Stamp Act, addressed to all the sister colonies, and proposing that all should send delegates to a congress to be held at New York, on the first Tuesday of the following October, to deal with the perils and duties of the situation. This circular letter at once started upon its tour.

The first reception of it, however, was discouraging. From the speaker of the New Jersey a.s.sembly came the reply that the members of that body were "unanimously against uniting on the present occasion;" and for several weeks thereafter, "no movement appeared in favor of the great and wise measure of convening a congress." At last, however, the project of Ma.s.sachusetts began to feel the accelerating force of a mighty impetus. The Virginia resolutions, being at last divulged throughout the land, "had a marked effect on public opinion." They were "heralded as the voice of a colony.... The fame of the resolves spread as they were circulated in the journals.... The Virginia action, like an alarum, roused the patriots to pa.s.s similar resolves.[75] "On the 8th of July, "The Boston Gazette" uttered this most significant sentence: "The people of Virginia have spoken very sensibly, and the frozen politicians of a more northern government say they have spoken treason."[76] On the same day, in that same town of Boston, an aged lawyer and patriot[77] lay upon his death bed; and in his admiration for the Virginians on account of these resolves, he exclaimed, "They are men; they are n.o.ble spirits."[78] On the 13th of August, the people of Providence instructed their representatives in the legislature to vote in favor of the congress, and to procure the pa.s.sage of a series of resolutions in which were incorporated those of Virginia.[79] On the 15th of August, from Boston, Governor Bernard wrote home to the ministry: "Two or three months ago, I thought that this people would submit to the Stamp Act. Murmurs were indeed continually heard; but they seemed to be such as would die away. But the publis.h.i.+ng of the Virginia resolves proved an alarm bell to the disaffected."[80] On the 23d of September, General Gage, the commander of the British forces in America, wrote from New York to Secretary Conway that the Virginia resolves had given "the signal for a general outcry over the continent."[81] And finally, in the autumn of 1774, an able loyalist writer, looking back over the political history of the colonies from the year of the Stamp Act, singled out the Virginia resolves as the baleful cause of all the troubles that had then come upon the land. "After it was known," said he, "that the Stamp Act was pa.s.sed, some resolves of the House of Burgesses in Virginia, denying the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, made their appearance. We read them with wonder; they savored of independence; they flattered the human pa.s.sions; the reasoning was specious; we wished it conclusive. The transition to believing it so was easy; and we, and almost all America, followed their example, in resolving that Parliament had no such right."[82]

All these facts, and many more that might be produced, seem to point to the Virginia resolutions of 1765 as having come at a great primary crisis of the Revolution,--a crisis of mental confusion and hesitation,--and as having then uttered, with trumpet voice, the very word that was fitted to the hour, and that gave to men's minds clearness of vision, and to their hearts a settled purpose. It must have been in the light of such facts as these that Patrick Henry, in his old age, reviewing his own wonderful career, determined to make a sort of testamentary statement concerning his relation to that single transaction,--so vitally connected with the greatest epoch in American history.

Among the papers left by him at his death was one significantly placed by the side of his will, carefully sealed, and bearing this superscription: "Inclosed are the resolutions of the Virginia a.s.sembly in 1765, concerning the Stamp Act. Let my executors open this paper."

On opening the doc.u.ment, his executors found on one side of the sheet the first five resolutions in the famous series introduced by him; and on the other side, these weighty words:--

The within resolutions pa.s.sed the House of Burgesses in May, 1765. They formed the first opposition to the Stamp Act, and the scheme of taxing America by the British parliament. All the colonies, either through fear, or want of opportunity to form an opposition, or from influence of some kind or other, had remained silent. I had been for the first time elected a Burgess a few days before; was young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms of the House, and the members that composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to venture; and alone, unadvised, and una.s.sisted, on a blank leaf of an old law book, wrote the within.[83] Upon offering them to the House, violent debates ensued. Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast on me by the party for submission. After a long and warm contest, the resolutions pa.s.sed by a very small majority, perhaps of one or two only. The alarm spread throughout America with astonis.h.i.+ng quickness, and the ministerial party were overwhelmed. The great point of resistance to British taxation was universally established in the colonies. This brought on the war, which finally separated the two countries, and gave independence to ours.

Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse, will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious G.o.d hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation.

Reader! whoever thou art, remember this; and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.

P. HENRY.[84]

But while this renowned act in Patrick Henry's life had consequences so notable in their bearing on great national and international movements, it is interesting to observe, also, its immediate effects on his own personal position in the world, and on the development of his career. We can hardly be surprised to find, on the one hand, that his act gave deep offence to one very considerable cla.s.s of persons in Virginia,--the official representatives of the English government, and their natural allies, those thoughtful and conscientious colonists who, by temperament and conviction, were inclined to lay a heavy accent on the principle of civil authority and order. Of course, as the official head of this not ign.o.ble cla.s.s, stood Francis Fauquier, the lieutenant-governor of the colony; and his letter to the lords of trade, written from Williamsburg a few days after the close of the session, contains a striking narrative of this stormy proceeding, and an almost amusing touch of official undervaluation of Patrick Henry: "In the course of the debate, I have heard that very indecent language was used by a Mr. Henry, a young lawyer, who had not been above a month a member of the House, and who carried all the young members with him."[85] But a far more specific and intense expression of antipathy came, a few weeks later, from the Reverend William Robinson, the colonial commissary of the Bishop of London. Writing, on the 12th of August, to his metropolitan, he gave an account of Patrick Henry's very offensive management of the cause against the parsons, before becoming a member of the House of Burgesses; and then added:--

"He has since been chosen a representative for one of the counties, in which character he has lately distinguished himself in the House of Burgesses on occasion of the arrival of an act of Parliament for stamp duties, while the a.s.sembly was sitting. He blazed out in a violent speech against the authority of Parliament and the king, comparing his majesty to a Tarquin, a Caesar, and a Charles the First, and not sparing insinuations that he wished another Cromwell would arise. He made a motion for several outrageous resolves, some of which pa.s.sed and were again erased as soon as his back was turned.... Mr. Henry, the hero of whom I have been writing, is gone quietly into the upper parts of the country to recommend himself to his const.i.tuents by spreading treason and enforcing firm resolutions against the authority of the British Parliament."[86]

Such was Patrick Henry's introduction to the upper spheres of English society,--spheres in which his name was to become still better known as time rolled on, and for conduct not likely to efface the impression of this bitter beginning.

As to his reputation in the colonies outside of Virginia, doubtless the progress of it, during this period, was slow and dim; for the celebrity acquired by the resolutions of 1765 attached to the colony rather than to the person. Moreover, the boundaries of each colony, in those days, were in most cases the boundaries likewise of the personal reputations it cherished. It was not until Patrick Henry came forward, in the Congress of 1774, upon an arena that may be called national, that his name gathered about it the splendor of a national fame. Yet, even before 1774, in the rather dull and ungossiping newspapers of that time, and in the letters and diaries of its public men, may be discovered an occasional allusion showing that already his name had broken over the borders of Virginia, had traveled even so far as to New England, and that in Boston itself he was a person whom people were beginning to talk about. For example, in his Diary for the 22d of July, 1770, John Adams speaks of meeting some gentlemen from Virginia, and of going out to Cambridge with them. One of them is mentioned by name as having this distinction,--that he "is an intimate friend of Mr. Patrick Henry, the first mover of the Virginia resolves in 1765."[87] Thus, even so early, the incipient revolutionist in New England had got his thoughts on his brilliant political kinsman in Virginia.

But it was chiefly within the limits of his own splendid and gallant colony, and among an eager and impressionable people whose habitual hatred of all restraints turned into undying love for this das.h.i.+ng champion of natural liberty, that Patrick Henry was now instantly crowned with his crown of sovereignty. By his resolutions against the Stamp Act, as Jefferson testifies, "Mr. Henry took the lead out of the hands of those who had heretofore guided the proceedings of the House, that is to say, of Pendleton, Wythe, Bland, Randolph, and Nicholas."[88] Wirt does not put the case too strongly when he declares, that "after this debate there was no longer a question among the body of the people, as to Mr. Henry's being the first statesman and orator in Virginia. Those, indeed, whose ranks he had scattered, and whom he had thrown into the shade, still tried to brand him with the names of declaimer and demagogue. But this was obviously the effect of envy and mortified pride.... From the period of which we have been speaking, Mr. Henry became the idol of the people of Virginia."[89]

FOOTNOTES:

[73] See this view supported by Wirt, in his life by Kennedy, ii. 73.

[74] Gordon, _Hist. of Am. Rev._ i. 131.

[75] Frothingham, _Rise of the Republic_, 178-181.

[76] Cited in Frothingham, 181.

[77] Oxenbridge Thacher.

[78] _Works of John Adams_, x. 287.

[79] Frothingham, 181.

[80] Cited by Sparks, in Everett, _Life of Henry_, 396.

[81] Frothingham, _Rise of the Republic_, 181.

[82] Daniel Leonard, in _Novanglus and Ma.s.sachusettensis_, 147, 148.

[83] As the historic importance of the Virginia resolutions became more and more apparent, a disposition was manifested to deny to Patrick Henry the honor of having written them. As early as 1790, Madison, between whom and Henry there was nearly always a sharp hostility, significantly asked Edmund Pendleton to tell him "where the resolutions proposed by Mr. Henry really originated." _Letters and Other Writings of Madison_, i. 515. Edmund Randolph is said to have a.s.serted that they were written by William Fleming; a statement of which Jefferson remarked, "It is to me incomprehensible." _Works_, vi.

484. But to Jefferson's own testimony on the same subject, I would apply the same remark. In his Memorandum, he says without hesitation that the resolutions "were drawn up by George Johnston, a lawyer of the Northern Neck, a very able, logical, and correct speaker." _Hist.

Mag._ for 1867, 91. But in another paper, written at about the same time, Jefferson said: "I can readily enough believe these resolutions were written by Mr. Henry himself. They bear the stamp of his mind, strong, without precision. That they were written by Johnston, who seconded them, was only the rumor of the day, and very possibly unfounded." _Works_, vi. 484. In the face of all this tissue of rumor, guesswork, and self-contradiction, the deliberate statement of Patrick Henry himself that he wrote the five resolutions referred to by him, and that he wrote them "alone, unadvised, and una.s.sisted," must close the discussion.

[84] Verified from the original ma.n.u.script, now in possession of Mr.

W. W. Henry.

[85] Cited by Sparks, in Everett, _Life of Henry_, 392.

[86] Perry, _Hist. Coll._ i. 514, 515.

[87] _Works of John Adams_, ii. 249.

[88] _Works of Jefferson_, vi. 368.

[89] _Life of Henry_, 66.

CHAPTER VII

STEADY WORK

From the close of Patrick Henry's first term in the Virginia House of Burgesses, in the spring of 1765, to the opening of his first term in the Continental Congress, in the fall of 1774, there stretches a period of about nine years, which, for the purposes of our present study, may be rapidly glanced at and pa.s.sed by.

In general, it may be described as a period during which he had settled down to steady work, both as a lawyer and as a politician. The first five years of his professional life had witnessed his advance, as we have seen, by strides which only genius can make, from great obscurity to great distinction; his advance from a condition of universal failure to one of success so universal that his career may be said to have become within that brief period solidly established.

At the bar, upon the hustings, in the legislature, as a master of policies, as a leader of men, he had already proved himself to be, of his kind, without a peer in all the colony of Virginia,--a colony which was then the prolific mother of great men. With him, therefore, the period of training and of tentative struggle had pa.s.sed: the period now entered upon was one of recognized masters.h.i.+p and of a.s.sured performance, along lines certified by victories that came gayly, and apparently at his slightest call.

We note, at the beginning of this period, an event indicating substantial prosperity in his life: he acquires the visible dignity of a country-seat. Down to the end of 1763, and probably even to the summer of 1765, he had continued to live in the neighborhood of Hanover Court House. After coming back from his first term of service in the House of Burgesses, where he had sat as member for the county of Louisa, he removed his residence into that county, and established himself there upon an estate called Roundabout, purchased by him of his father. In 1768 he returned to Hanover, and in 1771 he bought a place in that county called Scotch Town, which continued to be his seat until shortly after the Declaration of Independence, when, having become governor of the new State of Virginia, he took up his residence at Williamsburg, in the palace long occupied by the official representatives of royalty.

For the practice of his profession, the earlier portion of this period was perhaps not altogether unfavorable. The political questions then in debate were, indeed, exciting, but they had not quite reached the ultimate issue, and did not yet demand from him the complete surrender of his life. Those years seem to have been marked by great professional activity on his part, and by considerable growth in his reputation, even for the higher and more difficult work of the law. Of course, as the vast controversy between the colonists and Great Britain grew in violence, all controversies between one colonist and another began to seem petty, and to be postponed; even the courts ceased to meet with much regularity, and finally ceased to meet at all; while Patrick Henry himself, forsaking his private concerns, became entirely absorbed in the concerns of the public.

The fluctuations in his engagements as a lawyer, during all these years, may be traced with some certainty by the entries in his fee-books. For the year 1765, he charges fees in 547 cases; for 1766, in 114 cases; for 1767, in 554 cases; for 1768, in 354 cases. With the next year there begins a great falling off in the number of his cases; and the decline continues till 1774, when, in the convulsions of the time, his practice stops altogether. Thus, for 1769, there are registered 132 cases; for 1770, 94 cases; for 1771, 102 cases; for 1772, 43 cases; for 1773, 7 cases; and for 1774, none.[90]

The character of the professional work done by him during this period deserves a moment's consideration. Prior to 1769, he had limited himself to practice in the courts of the several counties. In that year he began to practice in the general court,--the highest court in the colony,--where of course were tried the most important and difficult causes, and where thenceforward he had constantly to encounter the most learned and acute lawyers at the bar, including such men as Pendleton, Wythe, Blair, Mercer, John Randolph, Thompson Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert C. Nicholas.[91]

There could never have been any doubt of his supreme competency to deal with such criminal causes as he had to manage in that court or in any other; and with respect to the conduct of other than criminal causes, all purely contemporaneous evidence, now to be had, implies that he had not ventured to present himself before the higher tribunals of the land until he had qualified himself to bear his part there with success and honor. Thus, the instance may be mentioned of his appearing in the Court of Admiralty, "in behalf of a Spanish captain, whose vessel and cargo had been libeled. A gentleman who was present, and who was very well qualified to judge, was heard to declare, after the trial was over, that he never heard a more eloquent or argumentative speech in his life; that Mr. Henry was on that occasion greatly superior to Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Mason, or any other counsel who spoke to the subject; and that he was astonished how Mr.

Henry could have acquired such a knowledge of the maritime law, to which it was believed he had never before turned his attention."[92]

Moreover, in 1771, just two years from the time when Patrick Henry began practice in the General Court, Robert C. Nicholas, then a veteran member of the profession, "who had enjoyed the first practice at the bar," had occasion to retire, and began looking about among the younger men for some competent lawyer to whom he might safely intrust the unfinished business of his clients. He first offered his practice to Thomas Jefferson, who, however, was compelled to decline it.

Afterward, he offered it to Patrick Henry, who accepted it; and accordingly, by public advertis.e.m.e.nt, Nicholas informed his clients that he had committed to Patrick Henry the further protection of their interests,[93]--a perfectly conclusive proof, it should seem, of the real respect in which Patrick Henry's qualifications as a lawyer were then held, not only by the public but by the profession. Certainly such evidence as this can hardly be set aside by the supposed recollections of one old gentleman, of broken memory and unbroken resentment, who long afterward tried to convince Wirt that, even at the period now in question, Patrick Henry was "wofully deficient as a lawyer," was unable to contend with his a.s.sociates "on a mere question of law," and was "so little acquainted with the fundamental principles of his profession ... as not to be able to see the remote bearings of the reported cases."[94] The expressions here quoted are, apparently, Wirt's own paraphrase of the statements which were made to him by Jefferson, and which, in many of their details, can now be proved, on doc.u.mentary evidence, to be the work of a hand that had forgot, not indeed its cunning, but at any rate its accuracy.

As to the political history of Patrick Henry during this period, it may be easily described. The doctrine on which he had planted himself by his resolutions in 1765, namely, that the parliamentary taxation of unrepresented colonies is unconst.i.tutional, became the avowed doctrine of Virginia, and of all her sister colonies; and nearly all the men who, in the House of Burgesses, had, for reasons of propriety, or of expediency, or of personal feeling, opposed the pa.s.sage of his resolutions, soon took pains to make it known to their const.i.tuents that their opposition had not been to the principle which those resolutions expressed. Thenceforward, among the leaders in Virginian politics, there was no real disagreement on the fundamental question; only such disagreement touching methods as must always occur between spirits who are cautious and spirits who are bold. Chief among the former were Pendleton, Wythe, Bland, Peyton Randolph, and Nicholas. In the van of the latter always stood Patrick Henry, and with him Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, the Pages, and George Mason. But between the two groups, after all, was surprising harmony, which is thus explained by one who in all that business had a great part and who never was a laggard:--

"Sensible, however, of the importance of unanimity among our const.i.tuents, although we often wished to have gone faster, we slackened our pace, that our less ardent colleagues might keep up with us; and they, on their part, differing nothing from us in principle, quickened their gait somewhat beyond that which their prudence might of itself have advised, and thus consolidated the phalanx which breasted the power of Britain. By this harmony of the bold with the cautious, we advanced with our const.i.tuents in undivided ma.s.s, and with fewer examples of separation than, perhaps, existed in any other part of the union."[95]

All deprecated a quarrel with Great Britain; all deprecated as a boundless calamity the possible issue of independence; all desired to remain in loyal, free, and honorable connection with the British empire; and against the impending danger of an a.s.sault upon the freedom, and consequently the honor, of this connection, all stood on guard.

One result, however, of this practical unanimity among the leaders in Virginia was the absence, during all this period, of those impa.s.sioned and dramatic conflicts in debate, which would have called forth historic exhibitions of Patrick Henry's eloquence and of his gifts for conduct and command. He had a leading part in all the counsels of the time; he was sent to every session of the House of Burgesses; he was at the front in all local committees and conventions; he was made a member of the first Committee of Correspondence; and all these incidents in this portion of his life culminated in his mission as one of the deputies from Virginia to the first Continental Congress.