He failed as a storekeeper. Next he failed as a farmer. With such a start, who would expect Patrick Henry to become famous? When he entered law school, some people thought he would fail at that too. But in 1763, at the age of twenty-seven, Patrick Henry argued in the "Parson's Cause." He challenged the Church of England's right to tax all colonists, no matter what their religion, to pay the salaries of its ministers. His speech won him immediate fame.

In the Virginia House of Burgess in 1765, Patrick Henry argued with passion against the Stamp Act. He said, "Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First, his Cromwell; and George the Third may profit by their example." (Brutus assassinated Caesar; Cromwell had Charles the First beheaded.) The horrified delegates interrupted him with shouts of "Treason!" Patrick Henry responded, "If this be treason, make the most of it."

Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, got so mad that he dissolved the Virginia legislature in 1774. But it continued to meet in secret session in Richmond. That is where Patrick Henry gave the famous "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech that earned him the title "Orator of Liberty."

During the Revolutionary War, he served three one-year terms as governor of Virginia and helped to draft the state's constitution. He served two more terms as governor of Virginia after the war from 1784 to 1786. He then left public life to retire to his plantation, Red Hill, and to resume his law practice.

Patrick Henry supported states' rights and feared a too-powerful central government. He nearly succeeded in persuading Virginia to reject the Constitution. When President George Washington offered Patrick Henry the office of Secretary of State, he refused. Washington asked him to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but he refused that too. Nor did he accept offers for another term as governor of Virginia or as ambassador to France for President John Adams.

Only shortly before his death in 1799 did Patrick Henry change his mind and support the federal government.