Part 3 (2/2)
[43] _Ibid_ i 465, 466
[44] Meade, _Old Faiven of these Virginia ”option laws,” I have been obliged, by lack of space, to give somewhat curtly the bald results of rather careful studies which I have made upon the question in all accessible documents of the period; and I have not been at liberty to state s, on both sides of the question, which would be necessary to a co the motives to be mentioned for the popularity of lahose chief effects were to diy, should be considered those connected with a growing dissent froinia, and particularly with the very hu in the form of a compulsory tax what they would have cheerfully paid in the form of a voluntary contribution Perhaps the best modern defense of these laws is by A H Everett, in his _Life of Henry_, 230-233; but his statements see his opinion under the responsibility of his great professional and official position, affiry had ument” _Life of Henry,_ 22
[46] Perry, _Hist Coll_ i 510
[47] _Ibid_ i 513, 514
[48] _Ibid_ i 496, 497
[49] Perry, _Hist Coll_ i 497
[50] Maury, _Meuenot Fauenot Family_, 419, 420
[52] _Ibid_ 420
[53] This cannot be true except in the sense that he had never before spoken to such an assereat cause
[54] Wirt, 23-27
[55] _Ibid_ 29
[56] Maury, _Meuenot Faiven in print for the first time
CHAPTER V
FIRST TRIUMPHS AT THE CAPITAL
It is not in the least strange that the noble-yinia parsons, should have been deeply offended by the fierce and victorious eloquence of the young advocate on the opposite side, and should have let fall, with reference to hier that any one who knew him could ever have said of Patrick Henry that he was disposed ”to traion,” or that he had any ill-will toward the church or its rowing out of a civil establishment of the church in his native colony, hedevout churchmen there; but in spite of this, then and always, to the very end of his life, his most sacred convictions and his tenderest affections seem to have been on the side of the institutions and ministers of Christianity, and even of Christianity in its historic forreat speech, he tried to indicate to the good al claims it had become his professional duty to resist, that such resistanceon his part any personal unkindness To his uncle and namesake, the Reverend Patrick Henry, as even then a plaintiff in a similar suit, and whom he had affectionately persuaded not to reainst the pecuniary dey had not thought hi retained on their side,” and that ”he knew of no moral principle by which he was bound to refuse a fee from their adversaries”[57] So, too, the conciliatory words, which, after the trial, he tried to speak to the indignant plaintiff, and which the latter has reported in the blunt forry interpretation of theiven to they to Maury, ”pleaded as an excuse for his course, that he was a young lawyer, a candidate for practice and reputation, and therefore enial efforts at pacification are of rather nificance: they are indications of character They mark a distinct quality of thethe rest of his life,--a certain sweetness of spirit, which never deserted hih all the stern conflicts of his career He was always a good fighter: never a good hater He had the brain and the teination and his heart always kindled hotly to the side that he had espoused, and with his iination and his heart alent all the rest of the man; in his advocacy of any cause that he had thus made his own, he hesitated at no weapon either of offence or of defence; he struck hard blows--he spoke hard words--and he usually triumphed; and yet, even in the paroxysms of the combat, and still more so when the combat was over, he showed how possible it is to be a redoubtable antagonist without having a particle of reat scene in his public life, there comes down to us another incident that has its own story to tell In all the roar of talk within and about the courthouse, after the trial was over, one ”Mr Cootes, merchant of Jaiven a considerable sum out of his own pocket rather than his friend Patrick should have been guilty of a criht Si that Patrick's speech had ”exceeded the ues of the Tribunes of Old Rome”[59] Here, then, thus early in his career, even in this sorrowful and alarmed criticism on the supposed error of his speech, we find a token of that loving interest in hian to possess the heartstrings of inian all about the land, and which thenceforward steadily broadened and deepened into a sort of popular idolization of him The mysterious hold which Patrick Henry cainia is an historic fact, to be recognized, even if not accounted for He was to make eneainst hihtful and conservative minds, the deadly hatred of many an old leader in colonial politics, the deadly envy of o on ruffling the pluood citizens, who, fros without hi that they had reckoned without their host
But for all that, the willingness of this worthy Mr Cootes of James River to part with his o far wrong, see passion of love for hiinia so long as Patrick lived, and perhaps has never abated since
It is not hard to i a forensic success iven to the professional and political career of the young advocate Not only was he immediately retained by the defendants in all the other suits of the same kind then instituted in the courts of the colony, but, as his fee-books show, froal practice of every sort received an enorinia, always a warree almost inconceivable at the North, sensitive to oratory, and admirers of eloquent men The first test by which they commonly ascertained the fitness of a man for public office, concerned his ability to make a speech; and it cannot be doubted that froue in the ”Parsons' Cause,”--a piece of oratory altogether surpassing anything ever before heard in Virginia,--the eyes of an to fasten upon hireat part in political life
During the earlier years of his career, Willia was the capital of the colony,--the official residence of its governor, the place of assehest courts, and, at certain seasons of the year, the scene of no little vice-regal and provincial et peroes once ive some proof of his quality in the profession to which he had been reluctantly ad series of triuave food for wondering talk to all his conteered in the islature, in the fall of 1764, the coes and elections had before thee, who had taken his seat as ht to the seat was contested, on a charge of bribery and corruption, by Nathaniel West Dandridge For a day or two before the hearing of the case, theer to everybody,”aardly aboutwith a countenance of abstraction and total unconcern as to as passing around him;”
but hen the coainst Littlepage, at once took his place as counsel for the for his na to it from the scene at Hanover Court House nearly a twelveainly appearance that they treated hilect and even with discourtesy; until, when his turn caue the cause of his client, he poured forth such a torrent of eloquence, and exhibited with so e and the i it, that the incivility and contempt of the committee were turned into admiration[60] Nevertheless, it appears from the journals of the House that, whatever may have been the ade's advocate, they did not award the seat to Mr Dandridge
Such was Patrick Henry's first contact with the legislature of Virginia,--a body of which he was soon to becoe, the talents, and the envious opposition of its old leaders, he was proain an ascendancy that constituted hi as he chose to hold a place in it On the present occasion, having finished the soht him before the committee, it is probable that he instantly disappeared fro, when he came back to transact business with the House itself
For, early in May, 1765, a vacancy having occurred in the representation for the county of Louisa, Patrick Henry, though not then a resident in that county, was elected as its member The first entry to behis presence in the House, is that of his appointment, on the 20th of May, as an additional member of the committee for courts of justice Between that date and the 1st of June, when the House was angrily dissolved by the governor, this young and very rural s--things, in fact, so notable that they conveyed to the people of Virginia the tidings of the advent aave an historic impulse to the series of measures which ended in the disruption of the British Eh the world,--not without lively i assurances that he was destined to be hanged
The first of these notable things is one which incidentally throws a rather painful glare on the corruptions of political life in our old and belauded colonial days The speaker of the House of Burgesses at that ti all the landed aristocracy of Virginia He had then been speaker for about twenty-five years; for a long time, also, he had been treasurer of the colony; and in the latter capacity he had been accustomed for many years to lend the public money, on his own private account, to his personal and political friends, and particularly to those of theate business had continued so long that Robinson had finally become a defaulter to an enormous amount; and in order to avert the shame and ruin of an exposure, he and his particular friends, just before the arrival of Patrick Henry, had invented a very pretty device, to be called a ”public loan office,”--”froood landed security, to individuals,” and by which, as was expected, the debts due to Robinson on the loans which he had been granting ht be ”transferred to the public, and his deficit thus coht forward under nearly every possible advantage of influential support It was presented to the House and to the public as a measure eminently wise and beneficial It was supported in the House by many powerful and honorable members who had not the re at the bottom of it Apparently it was on the point of adoption when, fro to the upper counties, there arose this raw youth, who had only just taken his seat, and ithout any infor the secret intent of the measure, and equally without any disposition to let the older and statelierfor hieneral principles Fro into the asse, who thus had the good luck to witness the debut of his old coy the spirit of favoritism on which the proposition was founded, and the abuses to which it would lead, that it was crushed in its birth”[62] He ”attacked the sche eloquence for which he became so justly celebrated afterwards He carried with him all the members of the upper counties, and left a minority composed merely of the aristocracy of the country Fro four years after, his deficit was brought to light, and discovered the true object of the proposition”[63]