Part 5 (1/2)
But while the tidings of these resolutions were thus land, and before they had arrived there, the asseun to take action Indeed, it had first met on the very day on which Patrick Henry had introduced his resolutions into the co On the 8th of June, it had resolved upon a circular letter concerning the Sta 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 assembly came the reply that theon the present occasion;” and for several weeks thereafter, ”no reat and wise ress” At last, however, the project of Massachusetts began to feel the accelerating force of a ed 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 pass similar resolves[75] ”On the 8th of July, ”The Boston Gazette” uttered this inia have spoken very sensibly, and the frozen politicians of a overnment say they have spoken treason”[76] On the saed lawyer and patriot[77] lay upon his death bed; and in his adinians on account of these resolves, he exclaimed, ”They are ust, the people of Providence instructed their representatives in the legislature to vote in favor of the congress, and to procure the passage of a series of resolutions in which were incorporated those of Virginia[79] On the 15th of August, from Boston, Governor Bernard wrote hoht that this people would submit to the Stamp Act Murmurs were indeed continually heard; but they see of the Virginia resolves proved an alarm bell to the disaffected”[80] On the 23d of Septee, the commander of the British forces in Ainia resolves had given ”the signal for a general outcry over the continent”[81] And finally, in the autu back over the political history of the colonies froinia resolves as the baleful cause of all the troubles that had then come upon the land ”After it was known,” said he, ”that the Staesses in Virginia, denying the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, made their appearance We read them onder; they savored of independence; they flattered the hu was specious; ished it conclusive The transition to believing it so was easy; and we, and al that Parliaht”[82]
All these facts, and inia resolutions of 1765 as having coreat primary crisis of the Revolution,--a crisis ofthen 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 ht of such facts as these that Patrick Henry, in his old age, reviewing his oonderful career, deter his relation to that single transaction,--so vitally connected with the greatest epoch in A the papers left by hinificantly placed by the side of his will, carefully sealed, and bearing this superscription: ”Inclosed are the resolutions of the Virginia asse the Sta the document, his executors found on one side of the sheet the first five resolutions in the famous series introduced by hihty words:--
The within resolutions passed the House of Burgesses in May, 1765 They formed the first opposition to the Sta America by the British parliah fear, or want of opportunity to form an opposition, or from influence of some kind or other, had reess a few days before; was young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the for the ht 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 unassisted, 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 onand warm contest, the resolutions passed by a very small hout A quickness, and the reat point of resistance to British taxation was universally established in the colonies This brought on the hich 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 racious God hath bestowed on us If they are wise, they will be great and happy If they are of a contrary character, they will be hteousness 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 internationalto 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 class of persons in Virginia,--the official representatives of the English governhtful 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 ignoble class, stood Francis Fauquier, the lieutenant-governor of the colony; and his letter to the lords of trade, written fro a few days after the close of the session, contains a striking narrative of this stor 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 amembers with him”[85] But a far more specific and intense expression of antipathy came, a feeeks later, from the Reverend William Robinson, the colonial coust, to his ave an account of Patrick Henry's very offensivea esses; and then added:--
”He has since been chosen a representative for one of the counties, in which character he has lately distinguished hiesses on occasion of the arrival of an act of Parlia He blazed out in a violent speech against the authority of Parlia his majesty to a Tarquin, a Caesar, and a Charles the First, and not sparing insinuations that he wished another Croeous resolves, soain erased as soon as his back was turned Mr Henry, the hero of whoone quietly into the upper parts of the country to reco treason and enforcing firainst 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 i
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 caress of 1774, upon an arena that athered about it the splendor of a national fa newspapers of that time, and in the letters and diaries of its publicthat already his nainia, had traveled even so far as to New England, and that in Boston itself he was a person who to talk about For example, in his Diary for the 22d of July, 1770, John Adaoing out to Ca this distinction,--that he ”is an intiinia resolves in 1765”[87] Thus, even so early, the incipient revolutionist in New England had got his thoughts on his brilliant political kinsinia
But it was chiefly within the lier and impressionable people whose habitual hatred of all restraints turned into undying love for this dashi+ng champion of natural liberty, that Patrick Henry was now instantly croith 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 a the first statesinia Those, indeed, whose ranks he had scattered, and whom he had thrown into the shade, still tried to brand hiue But this was obviously the effect of envy and mortified pride Fro, Mr Henry becainia”[89]
FOOTNOTES:
[73] See this view supported by Wirt, in his life by Kennedy, ii 73
[74] Gordon, _Hist of Aham, _Rise of the Republic_, 178-181
[76] Cited in Frothinghae Thacher
[78] _Works of John Adaham, 181
[80] Cited by Sparks, in Everett, _Life of Henry_, 396
[81] Frothingham, _Rise of the Republic_, 181
[82] Daniel Leonard, in _Novanglus and Massachusettensis_, 147, 148
[83] As the historic iinia resolutions became more and more apparent, a disposition waswritten them As early as 1790, Madison, bethonificantly asked Edmund Pendleton to tell hiinated” _Letters and Other Writings of Madison_, i 515 Edmund Randolph is said to have asserted that they ritten by Willia; 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 sah believe these resolutions ritten by Mr Henry hi, without precision That they ritten 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 ruuesswork, 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 unassisted,” inal manuscript, now in possession of Mr