(bright music) >>Funding for "Liberty or Death" was generously provided by The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty.

Modeled after the life and philosophy of Patrick Henry, one of the greatest patriots and orators of the American Revolutionary period.

And by Robins Foundation.

Funding was also provided by, Garland and Agnus Taylor Gray Foundation.

A supporting organization of The Community Foundation.

Serving Richmond and Central Virginia.

And by Thomas F. Jeffress Memorial.

And by St. Christopher's School, Class of 2014.

Proud to present their 5th grade gift in support of "Liberty or Death."

>>Give me liberty or give me death!

>>Well, the liberty or death speech is, I suppose, at the heart now of the legend of Patrick Henry.

Those who were there who witnessed it said that they could never forget that moment.

Patrick Henry had something of the preacher in him and I think that was the secret of his success.

He could combine the political orator and the admirable ways of a gentleman, with the stern style of the preacher and sounding the kind of moral thunder that preachers were expected to sound.

>>And his statements against king and country at that time period certainly were viewed as treasonous.

But today we would see them as the heart, if you will, of what the Revolution was about.

>>He was really channeling the moment when he spoke.

And he just dazzled people.

They were just awed by his ability to encapsulate powerful ideas in an extremely accessible and forceful manner.

>>It was the voice and the delivery that took a good speech and made it into an epic, history changing event.

It's one of the speeches that stands out above almost all others in American history.

Probably only the Gettysburg Address is as well known as the liberty or death speech.

(light music) (light bluegrass music) >>In March, 1775, Virginia's leaders were gathering outside of the law to take care of the colonies affairs.

They would travel from all parts of Virginia.

At stake was their perceived right to self government.

A belief shaped since the earliest days of the colony.

>>It has been said that the independent spirit of America was born out of the British policy of benign neglect towards the colonists.

The shores and settlements of America were at least a three week journey by ship from England.

Which made it difficult for the crown to rule his subjects in the new world.

The kings of England had more pressing matters to attend to.

Such as three civil wars and the challenges of royal succession.

This is why in 1619 the King allowed the colony of Virginia to setup its own government.

A general assembly to make laws for society.

In many respects, the colonists, the land owners, planters, business men, attorneys at law, gentry were free to manage their own lives for well over a century.

They grew accustomed to self government and wanted it to remain that way.

>>During this long period of time the colonists came to appreciate the value of that independence from Parliament.

They did not think of it as independence from Parliament, what they perceived it to be was their own exercising of their own English rights in their colony.

In Virginia, it was the House of Burgesses.

For 150 years the colonists in North America had been taxing themselves to build a capital building and to build courthouses and to build churches and to build roads.

To support militia companies, to defend the colony from the Indians or from the French or from the Spanish or whatever other enemy there was.

The English government largely neglected the colonies and it had a wholesome, benign effect on the colonists.

>>And during that time period the colonies developed many of the institutions and the ideas which would later shape the Revolution.

Those included things like economic relationships, political systems, and ideas about their rights and liberties which ultimately drove what they would do in the Revolutionary Period.

>>The colonists could elect their own delegates to the lower assemblies, like the Virginia House of Burgesses.

And they could form laws.

But the King's approval was required for every law they passed.

And they could meet and craft legislation only when the Royal Governor, the King's representative in the colony, asked them to meet.

>>One court case illustrated the struggle between royal power and the general assemblies.

It was also the first time the public took notice of Patrick Henry.

The Virginia General Assembly collected taxes to pay the annual salaries of Anglican ministers who were paid in tobacco.

In 1758, the crop failed and tobacco was worth three times more than normal.

Virginia's economy struggled, but the ministers stood to make a windfall profit.

In response, the General Assembly passed The Two Penny Act, a law intended to level the playing field by paying the ministers the original lower amount.

The ministers appealed to the King, who struck down the law.

One parson in Hanover County, Virginia sued in court for the full amount that was due to him.

The judge upheld the King's decision and awarded damages to the parson.

But it was up to the jury to decide how much he would receive.

Patrick Henry, then a young lawyer, stood up and argued that only the General Assembly had the right to make laws in the colonies.

He accused the ministers of being greedy during tough times and then Henry took aim at the King.

>>A King, by disallowing acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, has degenerated into a tyrant and forfeits all rights to his subjects obedience.

(crowd murmuring) >>Everyone in the room was shocked, but Henry had convinced the jury.

They awarded the minister a total of only one penny.

Henry had successfully thwarted the will of the King and was among the first in America to directly challenge royal authority in the colonies.

>>So there was pressure to go from benign neglect to more direct management.

But what is probably more important in the sort of bringing things to a flashpoint was this the French and Indian War.

The great struggle in which the British Empire and the French Empire fought it out.

>>Well, the so-called French and Indian War, it's also called the Seven Years' War, began in North America in 1754 when a young and ambitious officer named George Washington was sent by the Governor of Virginia to go into the Ohio Valley and oust a French fort at the forks of the Ohio, what's now Pittsburgh.

And he failed to do that, but he did ambush a French patrol which started this war.

Well now the British policy is to conquer Canada once and for all by investing unprecedented numbers of soldiers and warships and cannon and other munitions.

>>March on.

>>So this turns out to be the most expensive war the British had ever waged.

This meant at the end of the war, they had this enormous debt that they had to fund and they also had the larger empire to administer.

So the British are going to keep a permanent army of about 10,000 men in North America.

Whereas before the French and Indian War, they had virtually no men in North America.

This is expensive.

And so they need money for it.

And the notion is they could get some of the money by taxing the colonists as they had never done before.

>>Fire!

(gunshot) >>For the next 10 years, Parliament would impose various taxes on the colonies.

The Sugar Act, a tax on imported sugar from the West Indies was among the first.

>>And the colonists did not see this as a threat to their individual rights and liberties because this was not a tax directly imposed on them.

It was a tax, it was more of a way to regulate the commerce.

>>Where they did not see appropriateness was in taxes that were purely for revenue.

The Stamp Act had nothing to do with the regulation of trade.

It was on products that the colonists used each and every day.

A lease, a marriage license, playing cards and newspapers.

So this was the kind of tax that everyone could feel.

And this was a tax that was affixed upon the object with a stamp, thus the term The Stamp Act.

And it began to serve as sort of a reminder of oppression more than anything else.

>>So the issue wasn't that very heavy taxes were being put on the colonists.

On the contrary, they were very small.

But the colonists saw that as insidious.

They saw that if they accepted the precedent that they would pay these small taxes, they feared that down the road the British would increase those taxes and that someday this would turn out to be a very heavy tax burden and one that would impoverish them.

>>They would have to deal with it or as many chose, play ostrich.

And there must have been some speculation, I think, that Patrick Henry was not going to play ostrich.

>>Patrick Henry came into the 1765 House of Burgesses at the time of The Stamp Act as a young, untested, but already well known orator.

Patrick Henry took the argument about The Stamp Act to a new level of intensity.

Patrick Henry proposed resolutions complaining of The Stamp Act, that it was taxation without representation.

That it was unprecedented.

That it flew in the rights of the colonial legislatures.

But he went a step further.

>>Resolve!

The General Assembly of the colony have the only exclusive right and power to levy taxes and impositions on the inhabitants of this colony.

Any attempt to vest such power in a person or persons other than the General Assembly has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well American freedom.

>>Of the five resolutions Henry introduced, his fifth was most controversial.

And the debate that followed was so intense that murmurs of treason surfaced.

Henry responded swiftly.

>>Caesar had his Brutus.

Charles I his Cromwell.

And George III... >>Treason!

(crowd shouting) >>May profit by their example.

>>Treason, nothing less!

Treason!

>>Henry's sixth and seventh resolutions were never introduced.

They were even more controversial than the fifth.

The seventh stated that the colonies were bound only to the laws of the General Assembly and not the King.

It also said that those who supported taxes imposed by anyone other than the assembly was an enemy of the colony.

>>In other words, it was in a sense an incitement to riot.

It called on every, it gave legitimacy to outright resistance, defiance of the act.

And no one in all America had imagined going that far.

>>The opposition to the tax in the colonies took several forms.

Informal groups in most of the colonies urged a boycott of English manufactured goods.

Merchants, planters, farmers, men, women, old, young, all took part in refusing to do business under The Stamp Act.

Hoping to put pressure on English merchants and English manufacturers to put pressure on the House of Commons to repeal the act.

>>Of course, it's also women who will make sure that the family doesn't buy British goods.

They won't drink tea anymore.

The most quintessential icon of English-ness.

But it's women who have to find something else for their families to drink.

The number one item that colonists were importing from England was cloth.

So it's women who say, rather than buying English made cloth, we will go home.

We will raise animals.

We will shear off the wool and card the wool, and clean the wool, and twist it, and spin it, and weave it into cloth and then sew it into clothing.

It wasn't until the American Revolution that we get this age of home spun.

Men pass non-importation agreements.

It's women who make them stick.

>>Also, there were armed crowds that were armed with sticks and rocks that were doing their best to harass tax collectors and to oblige them to resign on peril of having their houses trashed or their bodies roughed up.

>>The economic pressure that they brought on the British Parliament succeeded.

They'd failed to notice one thing, however.

When Parliament repealed The Stamp Act, Parliament passed The Declaratory Act.

The Declaratory Act stated very clearly that Parliament had the right and the constitutional power to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever.

That was a bolder declaration of Parliamentary rights in the colonies even than the enactment of The Stamp Act.

>>England will follow very quickly, however, in 1767 with a new series of acts known as the Townshend Duties.

And these were even a wider sweeping set of taxes on a variety of goods.

And the colonists had a very, very negative reaction to the Townshend Duties and led to further protests.

Probably the most notable event that came from this is an event we know as the Boston Massacre.

It led to a further log on the fire of revolution because most interpreted this as English oppression at its worst.

Firing into an unarmed mob.

The colonists did learn that resistance did work to some degree.

And when England repealed the Townshend Duties, all were repealed except the tax on tea.

The tax on tea actually lowered the price that colonists were going to pay for tea.

Nevertheless, the fact that a tax continued caused a great deal of concern for a product that was widely consumed in the colonies.

And so protests occurred over the tea tax that ranged again from drinking alternatives to tea, to eventually dumping tea.

As we know, the Tea Party occurred in Boston Harbor, but often forgotten is that there were tea parties all up and down the East Coast.

>>But what happened next is that the British responded in such a heavy handed manner to the Boston Tea Party.

They imposed these coercive acts, which punished the Port of Boston by shutting it down until the Bostonians paid for the tea that was destroyed.

And they also altered the charter of government for Massachusetts, consolidating much more power in the hands of the Royal Governor of Massachusetts.

That Virginians then almost unanimously said, if the British can just arbitrarily cut off a sea port's commerce and can arbitrarily change a colonial government, no colony is safe.

>>All the colonies recognized that this was a common cause.

That for all their differences they had with the Massachusetts folk and all their doubts about whether one should be so rash as to throw tea in the harbor, they knew we can't submit to this.

>>The Virginia House of Burgesses called for a day of prayer to be in solidarity with the people of Boston.

The Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, reacted by dissolving the assembly.

To convene would be unauthorized.

But the delegates met anyway in the capital city of Williamsburg.

This was the First Virginia Convention, but the governor and his troops were too close and could easily disperse the delegates.

The 2nd Virginia Convention would have to be further away, out of reach of the governor and his army.

(light bluegrass music) >>The delegates converged on the small town of Richmond.

The convention decided to meet at St. John's Church, then called Henrico Parish Church.

It was the only building in town big enough to hold all of the delegates.

Also, the church's pastor, the Reverend Miles Selden, was sympathetic to the colonial cause.

>>By dissolving the House of Burgesses, Lord Dunmore had left Virginia with no functioning government.

Several laws lapsed.

Of major concern was no one had the authority to arm or train a militia.

Or to provide for its governance in case it was called up in defense of the country.

Especially against the Indians on the western frontier.

And we still had an eye on Boston.

The delegates believed that if the Boston Harbor could be shut down, it could happen anywhere.

Even in Virginia.

The distrust between the governor and the assembly ran high.

Dunmore suspected the colonists would form a militia.

The colonists suspected Dunmore would use royal gunships to blockade the Chesapeake Bay.

The economy and the lives of the colonists would be ruined.

>>There was the threat of the crown sending over marines and navy ships and soldiers to reduce the colonists to a proper sense of obedience.

And there were rumors of slave uprisings in Virginia repeatedly in 1774.

>>The gentry were constantly worried about slave revolts because they also knew that in Barbados, Jamaica, there were constant slave revolts.

And they heard on other plantations of slaves rising up, rebelling against their masters.

And so, with the use of patrols that went through the slave community on a regular basis, those things were part of a system to keep people in their place.

>>Slave revolts, Indian wars, and British subjugation galvanized the need for a militia.

And arming a militia had broader implications.

>>Would they setup their own militia under the authority of the Provincial Congress rather than under the authority of the Royal Governor?

Now to do so was an extremely radical act.

It's a key step toward independence.

(church bell ringing) And that's the context of the famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech.

(church bell ringing) >>Most of Virginia's leaders were there.

Peyton Randolph was chosen president of the convention as he'd been chosen president of the first Continental Congress before.

There were men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Edmund Pendleton, and Patrick Henry.

>>And I, John Tazewell, was clerk for the convention.

There are no surviving contemporary records of the debates.

The events you will see were based on eye witness accounts.

First we'll consider a petition from the people of the island of Jamaica.

>>Is all in order, gentlemen?

>>Aye, sir.

>>Are you ready, Mr. Tazewell?

>>I am, sir.

>>I hereby declare this convention to be open.

The Reverend Miles Selden will now lead prayers.

>>Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our heavenly father, high and mighty ruler who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon the earth.

Most heartily we beseech thee with thy favor, to behold our most gracious sovereign Lord King George and to replenish him with the grace of thy holy spirit that he may always incline to thy will and walk in thy way through Jesus Christ our Lord.

>>Amen.

>>The clerk will now read minutes of yesterday.

>>The delegates met according to adjournment pursuant to order that the convention resume the consideration of the proceedings of last year's Continental Congress and pass the following resolution.

Resolve unanimously that this convention cordially approves of the resolutions of the American Continental Congress and consider this whole continent as under the highest obligations to that very respectable body for the wisdom of their counsels.

Adjourn until today at 10 o'clock.

>>Mr.

President.

>>Mr.

Thomas Jefferson, gentleman from Albemarle County.

>>I move that the minutes as read by the clerk be approved and adopted.

>>I second, Mr. President.

>>The minutes have been moved and seconded.

All those in favor will say aye.

>>Aye.

>>Opposed no.

The minutes are adopted.

Let the proceedings for this day now begin.

Gentlemen, I have here in my hand a copy of the recent petition and memorial of the Assembly of Jamaica to the King's most excellent majesty.

As it pertains to the colonies, and Virginia in particular, and as sufficient time has passed for your examination of it, the chair feels it fitting that some appropriate recognition of it be given by this convention.

>>Mr.

President.

>>Mr.

Edmund Pendleton, the gentleman from Caroline County.

>>I have a resolution to present, sir.

>>You may proceed, sir.

>>Resolved, that the unfamed thanks and most grateful acknowledgements of this convention be presented to the very respectable Assembly of the Island of Jamaica for their exceedingly generous and affectionate part they have so nobly taken in the unhappy contest between Great Britain and her colonies.

And for their truly patriotic endeavors to fix the just claims of the colonists upon the most permanent constitutional principles.

Let the assembly be assured that it is the most ardent wish of this colony and we are persuaded of the whole continent of North America to see a speedy return to those halcyon days when we lived a free and a happy people.

>>Mr.

President.

>>Mr.

Robert Carter Nicholas, gentleman from James City County.

>>Mr.

President, I rise to second the resolution read by the gentleman from Caroline.

>>Thank you.

>>Here, here!

>>We must stand firm for our country.

>>Aye!

>>But what days were happier than those of the near past?

>>Mr.

President!

>>Virginia under the best of kings enjoyed a generous prosperity.

I speak as treasurer of the colonies.

>>Mr.

President!

>>And I take a nat-- >>Sir, the question on the floor is the adoption of the resolution as read by the gentleman from Caroline County.

You have seconded him, have you not?

Very well.

All those in favor of adopting these resolutions will say aye.

>>Aye!

>>Are there any opposed?

The resolutions are adopted.

The clerk will transmit a copy of these resolutions to the Speaker of the Jamaican Assembly by the the earliest opportunity.

The floor is now open for new business.

>>Mr.

President.

>>Mr.

Patrick Henry, the gentleman from Hanover County.

>>I could but unite in that truly patriotic address of the legislature of Jamaica.

That address was noble and well intentioned.

But to my mind, I think it is absurd to rest quietly expecting a return of those halcyon days of old.

>>Here, here!

>>I beg to offer the following resolution.

>>You may proceed, sir.

>>Resolved, that a well regulated militia- (delegates murmuring) >>Composed of gentlemen and yeomen is the natural strength and only security of a free government.

That such a militia in this colony would render it unnecessary for the mother country to keep among us any standing army of mercenary forces and would obviate the pretext of taxing us for their support.

That the establishment of such a militia is at this time absolutely necessary.

For the protection and defense of the country.

And the known remiss of the government in calling us together in legislative capacity renders it too insecure in this time of danger and distress to assume that any provisions will be made to secure our inestimable rights and liberties from those further violations from which they are threatened.

>>But this means war, Mr. Henry!

>>We resolve therefore that this colony be put to immediate state of defense.

>>Here, here!

>>That a committee be named by this convention to prepare a plan for embodying, arming, and disciplining such a number of men as may be sufficient for that purpose.

(delegates murmuring) >>Mr.

President!

>>Mr.

Richard Henry Lee, gentleman from Westmoreland County.

>>Sir.

I rise to second the resolutions of the gentleman from Hanover.

I think they are timely and highly important.

>>Thank you for the second, Mr. Lee!

>>Don't be rash, sir.

This is nothing short of a declaration of war!

>>It is Mr. Henry who is rash!

At this moment the mother country is highly sympathetic towards us.

>>Sympathetic?

When British ships blockade our harbors?

>>We must do nothing to spoil for the king.

(delegates shouting) >>Gentlemen!

Mr. Lee has the floor.

>>Sir, I yield to no man in proper loyalty to the King.

But a king that fails to protect his subjects has broken the sacred covenant with his people.

>>Here, here!

Here, here!

>>Come now, Mr. Lee.

>>Gentleman, I will not agree to the sacrifice of a single one of our rights and privileges to any power on earth.

>>Aye.

>>We use but a natural right in making provision for our protection.

We mean no aggression, no violence, no treason.

But if the ministerial powers in England choose to regard our actions as such, then I say to them, follow the responsibility of the course taken by them.

>>Here, here!

>>What you suggest will mean war!

>>I hate to contemplate the thought of collision with the mother country.

And I know our weaknesses.

But gentlemen, has not nature come to our aid by spreading 3,000 miles of water between us and them?

If we have our weaknesses, so does England.

She will be at a vast disadvantage to transport over such distances.

In the event of war her armies and supplies.

>>Aye.

>>Sir, I will admit the probable calculations may still be against us.

>>Aye!

>>But I will say with our immortal bard, thrice be he armed who hath his quarrel just.

And he but naked, though locked up in steel, whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

>>Here, here!

Well said, sir.

Well said.

>>Mr.

President.

>>Mr.

Benjamin Harrison, the gentleman from Charles City County.

>>I desire to raise my voice in opposition to the adoption of the resolutions at this time.

>>Here, here.

>>I find them to be rash and inexpedient.

The report from England, as we all know, is that opposition to the King passed from the last convention has been graciously received.

(delegates groaning) No sufficient time has passed for a reply to come to us.

>>Sir, you know well Mr. Lee has received reliable word that the King will reject our request.

(delegates grumbling) >>It's coming, sir, it's coming.

>>We will have order!

Mr. Harrison.

>>Gentlemen, I am as warm a friend of liberty as any man in this convention.

>>Aye, we know you are, sir.

>>And is little disposed to submit.

But national civility and filial respect demands that we do nothing hastily.

>>Come, sir!

>>We offered no provocations.

I am a farmer and represent the farmers of Charles City County.

And I deprecate any step that might be taken that would stop the production of corn and tobacco.

And force the people of Virginia into starvation.

>>Oh, starvation indeed, sir!

What of the brave people of Boston?

>>I represent Charles City County, not Boston!

>>Mr.

President!

(delegates shouting) >>But if it can happen in New England it can happen here.

The colony needs to be prepared!

(delegates shouting) >>Mr.

Thomas Jefferson from Albemarle County.

>>Sir, Virginia is bound by honor and interest to share one fate with our sister colonies.

(delegates affirming) I recognize no allegiance to Parliament, only to the King.

The colonies are tied to England by the tie of the crown.

Virginia is a self governing dominion within the British Empire.

>>Aye.

>>Gentlemen, Virginia should be prepared.

>>Here, here!

>>I regard these acts of Parliament limiting our westward growth, attempting to tax our people without our consent, closing the port of Boston, and all of the intolerable acts, sir, are the aggressive acts of a foreign power.

(delegates affirming) They should be resisted, gentlemen, with all the means in our power.

>>Not to go to war.

>>The god who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.

I call earnestly on this convention to support Mr. Henry's resolution.

>>Oh, Mr. Jefferson!

We must act with discretion which is guided by simple reason!

>>How can one be discreet, sir, when British ships and cannons are aimed at short range at the Port of Boston!

>>Boston, that's 400 miles away!

>>Those ships could soon be up the Chesapeake!

(delegates shouting) >>Mr.

Harrison, Mr. Henry!

Take your seats, gentlemen.

Take your seat, Mr. Henry.

Mr. Edmund Pendleton, gentleman from Caroline.

>>I hope that this convention will proceed slowly before rushing Virginia into war.

Is this a moment to disgust our friends in England who are laboring for the repeal of the unjust taxes which afflict us?

To turn their friendship into hatred and their pity into revenge?

Are we ready for war?

>>Are we ready for tyranny?

>>Aye, sir!

>>Where are our arms?

Where our soldiers?

Where are monies?

The very sinews of war.

They are nowhere to be found.

Insufficient force or abundance so as to give us any reasonable hope of a successful resistance.

We are in truth poor and defenseless.

And we should only strike only when it becomes absolutely necessary and not before.

>>Aye!

(delegates murmuring) >>And yet, the gentleman in favor of this resolution talk of assuming the front of war.

>>Aye, sir.

>>Of assuming it too against a nation, one of the most powerful in all of the world.

A nation armed and ready at all points.

Whose navy rides in triumph on every sea, whose army never marches but to certain victory!

For god sake, Mr. President!

Let us allow all reasonable delay and then if the worst shall come to the worst, we shall have no feelings of blame.

>>This is not a time for timid measures, Mr. Pendleton.

>>Aye, sir!

>>Here, here!

>>There is no man at this convention more attached to the liberties of this country than the man who is now addressing you.

But we must think, gentlemen, before we sacrifice perhaps everything to a spirit of indignation and revenge.

Think of the strength and the luster that we derive from our connection with Great Britain.

Think of the domestic comforts which we have drawn from that same source.

Of the ties of trade and of business.

Of our friends and family still living in England.

The tyrannies from which we suffer, after all, are the tyrannies of a party in temporary possession of power.

>>Temporary, sir!

>>Give a little time.

Take no hostile action and these tyrants in England will be over thrown.

>>When, sir?

>>Men in sympathy with America will assume authority.

>>The gentleman is mistaken.

>>Our ills will pass away and the sunshine of the halcyon days will return.

>>Halcyon days again!

>>He's a dreamer.

(delegates shouting) >>We must arm, you say.

>>Aye, sir.

>>But gentlemen, remember that blows are apt to follow the arming and blood will follow the blows and when this occurs, the dogs of war will be loosed.

Friends will be converted into enemies.

And this flourishing country will be swept by a tornado of death and destruction.

>>Here, here!

>>Mr.

President.

>>Mr.

Robert Carter Nicholas, the gentleman from James City County.

>>Mr.

President.

I heartily agree with the gentleman from Caroline.

>>Here, here!

>>I consider the resolutions of the gentleman from Hanover to be hasty, rash, and unreasonable!

>>Sir.

>>The motion pushes too far.

We must strive to have errors rectified, not to alter or destroy our ties with the mother country.

>>Here, here.

>>But more than that, I deem the militia upon which the gentleman depends to be wholly insufficient for our defense.

>>Here, here!

>>It will prove the bane of the war, which the gentleman from Hanover seems so willing to hurry us into.

Sir, I hope these alarming military resolutions will be voted down.

>>Aye, sir!

>>But if the colony must be armed, then let her raise a force of 10,000 men.

(delegates affirming) >>Let the man speak, gentlemen!

>>Aye, 10,000 men I say.

To be trained as regulars and serve for the duration of the war.

Short term enlistments of militias such as the gentleman from Hanover contemplates will prove the bane of the war.

>>Aye!

>>But I speak for peace, not war.

Until war is forced upon us.

>>War is being forced upon us, sir.

The British have sent a hostile navy and army to subdue Boston.

>>But that is New England, Colonel!

>>Order!

>>Not Virginia!

>>But it could happen here!

(delegates shouting) >>The colony needs to be prepared!

>>Mr.

Thomas Nelson!

Gentlemen!

Mr. Thomas Nelson, the gentleman from York County.

>>Gentlemen, I'm a merchant in Yorktown and I derive much profit from my trade with England.

But why should we labor to raise our fortunes if they may be taken from us at the leisure of others.

(delegates cheering) Tyranny and naked aggression must be met with preparation and fortitude.

>>Aye, sir!

>>Let me say this, sir.

And I call God to witness.

If any British troops land in the County of York where I am lieutenant, I will await no orders.

I will summon the militia and drive the invaders to the water's edge!

(delegates cheering) >>Aye, to arms!

To arms!

To arms!

>>To arms!

>>Well said!

>>Mr.

President.

Gentlemen.

The taking up of arms should always be a last resort.

But can any honorable man scruple or hesitate to take up arms in defense of so priceless a thing as liberty?

>>Here, here!

>>Is it not clear, as the sun at its noon time brightness that some provision must be made to ensure proper arms and ammunition for the public good.

>>Aye, sir!

>>Aye!

>>And as the training of our militia has been much neglected, I will willingly resume my post of command should necessity arise.

>>Here, here, Colonel!

Here, here!

>>Gentlemen, the sword of our defense must be forged on the anvil of necessity.

For my own part, it is my full intention to offer up both my life and my fortune in the cause that we are engaged in if need be.

I urge that these resolutions now under discussion be adopted.

(delegates affirming) >>Mr.

President.

(delegates shouting) Mr. President.

>>Mr.

Patrick Henry, gentleman from Hanover County.

>>No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as the abilities of the very worthy gentleman who just addressed the house.

But different men often seem the same subject in different lights.

>>Aye!

>>And therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to these gentlemen, if entertaining as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs.

I shall set forth my sentiment freely and without reserve.

>>That he will, that he will.

>>This is no time for ceremony.

The question before the house is one of awful moment to our country.

For my own part, I considered nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery.

And in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate.

>>Aye.

>>It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at the truth.

And fulfill the great responsibility that we owe to God and our country.

Should I keep back my opinions at such a time through fear of giving offense?

Then I should consider myself guilty of treason toward my country and an act of disloyalty to the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

>>Amen, sir.

>>Mr.

President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope.

We are apt to shut our eyes against the painful truth.

And listen to the song of the siren until she transforms us into beasts.

Ha.

Is this the part of wise men engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?

Are we disposed to be of the number of those who having eyes see not and having ears hear not those things which so nearly concern our temporal salvation?

For my own part, however great the anguish of the spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth.

To know the worst and provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided and that is the lamp of experience.

I know of no way of judging the future, but by the past.

And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British Ministry for the last 10 years to justify these hopes with which gentlemen are pleased to solace themselves and this house?

Is it that insidious smile, sir, with which our petition has been lately received?

Trust it not, sir.

It will prove a snare unto your feet.

Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.

Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these war-like preparations that cover our waters and darken our lands.

Are fleets and armies necessary for a work of love and reconciliation?

Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled?

That force must now be called in to win back our love?

Let us not deceive ourselves.

These are the implements of war and subjugation.

The last argument to which kings resort.

(delegates affirming) And I ask, gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array if its purpose be not to force us into submission?

Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it?

Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for all this accumulation of armies and navies?

>>Come now.

>>No sir, she has none.

They are meant for us!

They can be meant for no other.

They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains with which the British Ministry has been so long forging.

And what have we to oppose them?

Ha!

Shall we try argument?

Sir, we have been trying that for the last 10 years.

Have we anything new to offer upon the subject?

Nothing.

We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable, but it has all been in vain.

Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication?

What terms shall we find that have not already been exhausted?

Let us not, I beseech you sirs, deceive ourselves any longer.

We have done everything that can be done to avert the storm which is now coming on.

We have petitioned.

We have remonstrated.

We have supplicated.

We have prostrated ourselves before the thrown and implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry in Parliament.

Our petitions have been slighted.

Our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult.

Our supplications have been disregarded and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne!

In vain, after all these things may we indulge in the fond hope of peace and reconciliation?

It is in vain to expect relief from a king who's become a tyrant, a fool, a puppet!

(delegates shouting) >>That's treason, Mr. Henry!

(delegates shouting) >>And no longer any hope be vested in the British people.

There are no Britons, no Scotsmen, no Englishmen.

Only a set of wretches sunk in luxury.

Who've lost their natural courage and cannot look the brave Americans in the face!

>>Here, here!

>>Gentlemen, there is no longer any ground for hope.

If we wish to be free.

If we wish to preserve in violet those inestimable privileges which belong to us as free men!

>>Aye!

>>If we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged.

In which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our struggle be obtained.

Then we must fight!

(delegates cheering) I repeat it, sir!

We must fight!

(delegates cheering) >>To arms and to the god of hosts is all we have left us!

(delegates cheering) >>Mr.

Henry, what arms?

We are weak, sir!

>>Let Henry speak!

>>Order!

>>They tell us, sir, that we are weak.

>>Aye, sir!

>>Unable to cope with so powerful an adversary.

But when shall we be stronger?

Will it be the next week?

Or the next year?

Will it be when we are totally disarmed and the British guards shall be stationed in every house?

Shall we acquire the means of an effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, hugging the delusive phantom of hope until our enemy have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak!

If we make a proper use of those means the God of nature have placed in our power.

Free millions of people.

Armed in the holy cause of liberty and in such a country that which we possess are invincible by any force our enemy can send against us!

>>Here, here!

>>Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone.

There is a just God.

Who presides over the destinies of nations.

Who will raise up friends to fight our battle for us.

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone.

It is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

(Patrick chuckling) Besides, sirs.

We have no election.

Should we base enough to desire it, it is now already too late to retire from the contest.

There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery.

Our chains are forged and the clinking may be heard upon the plains of Boston.

The war is inevitable.

And let it come!

I repeat it, sir, let it come!

(delegates shouting) >>Mr.

Henry, please speak for peace, sir!

For peace!

>>It is vain to extend your way to imagine.

Gentleman may cry "Peace, peace!"

But there is no peace.

The war is actually begun.

The next gale that blows from the north shall bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms.

Our brethren are already in the field.

Why stand we here idle?

What is it that they wish?

What would they have?

Is life so dear?

Or peace so sweet?

As to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

Forbid it, almighty God!

I know not what course others may take.

But as for me... Give me liberty or give me death!

>>Well said.

>>To arms!

To arms!

>>Mr.

Henry!

(delegates shouting) >>To arms!

(delegates shouting) >>Thomas Nelson, the gentleman from York County.

>>I move that the question be put to the military resolutions proposed by Mr. Henry.

>>Second, Mr. President.

>>The question has been called and seconded.

On the adoption of the resolutions from the gentleman of Hanover for calling for the arming of the colony.

The chair desires that every delegate weigh your decision carefully.

All those in favor will say aye.

>>Aye!

>>Those opposed, no.

>>No!

>>The ayes have it.

The resolutions are adopted.

Mr. Henry is hereby named chairman of the said committee and is charged with preparing proposing a plan for the organizing of this militia.

I hereby declare this convention to be adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

>>Patrick Henry's speech we think of as sweeping the convention before it.

And you know, Patrick Henry made a speech.

The Declaration of Independence was adopted.

The war is over.

It was not so easy.

And the convention journal suggests that Patrick Henry carried his motion by a small majority.

As soon as the vote was taken, the members of the convention appointed a committee.

Patrick Henry was the chairman.

That's because Patrick Henry made the motion.

Richard Henry Lee had made a seconding speech.

He was the vice chairman.

Young Thomas Jefferson became a member of that committee.

The colonies most experienced and respectable military men were put on that committee.

George Washington.

They put the treasurer of the colony, Robert Carter Nicholas on the committee even though Nicholas had opposed the motion.

They were thinking about finance and money.

They put Edmund Pendleton and Benjamin Harrison on.

Both of whom had opposed the motion.

They put on the most senior and respectable members from different regions of the colony.

I expect so that all of the parts of the colony would be represented.

So that it would give credit to the committee's recommendations.

Patrick Henry's great speech predicting that the next gale from the north would bring the sound of resounding arms.

The war in the north has actually begun.

And in fact, within three weeks the Battle at Lexington and Concord took place.

Not much more than a week after that, the governor in Williamsburg removed the public powder from the magazine.

In affect, disarming the Virginians.

It seems if Patrick Henry already understood the implications of everything that was going on and that a war was going to take place.

And that with the actions of the Massachusetts and Virginia Governors, they were disarming the people of the means of defending themselves.

If you needed any other argument to convince people that there was a concerted plot afoot to rob the Americans of their liberties, you had just seen the affects.

This must have made Patrick Henry seem like a man of great vision.

>>After the 2nd Virginia Convention, Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution by Pendleton to the Second Continental Congress.

It pressed for independence from England.

Thomas Jefferson was then directed by the Continental Congress to craft Lee's resolution into a national declaration of independence.

As commander and chief, George Washington led American forces to victory in the Revolution.

Patrick Henry became the first elected governor of a free and independent Virginia.

He served three consecutive terms and almost a decade later, served two more.

Word of Patrick Henry's speech spread throughout the colonies.

The phrase "Liberty or Death" became a rallying cry for many Americans.

Even those who did not benefit from the Revolution.

>>The enslaved population heard it also and later when Gabriel Prosser rebelled against slavery just outside of Richmond, one of the men that was captured referenced Patrick Henry and he inverted the phrase and said, "Death or liberty."

One of the consequences was everyone began to think about freedom for themselves in a different kind of way.

Women, enslaved people, and Native Americans too believed that this was the time that everyone needed to really push ahead and fight for their rights to be equal in this new society.

>>Their rhetoric put into motion events they could not have suspected.

The African American civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, and many of these movements use the rhetoric all men are created equal.

The founding fathers put into motion something that really in many ways spawn out of anything they had ever dreamed of.

>>Patrick Henry is a man who is a great mobilizer in Virginia.

And without Virginia there is no American Revolution.

Patrick Henry's activities on the Virginia stage has national implications and will culminate in American independence and the successful waging of the war for that independence.

>>I think Patrick Henry should be remembered as a courageous man who would stand up when he first started in defiance of the King in uncompromising tones.

He was a great role model for politicians in his reaching to the peoples, feeling their pulse.

>>Thomas Jefferson and others agreed that he understood the people better than anybody else.

He shared the same fears and hopes.

Then he put peoples own thoughts into persuasive, powerful words for them.

That is another legacy of Patrick Henry, bringing in the rest of the people into the political process.

Speaking to them, speaking for them.

That's democracy.

(upbeat blue grass music) >>"Liberty or Death" is available on home DVD for $21.95 including shipping and handling.

To order, call 1-877-915-1775.

Or order online at HistoricStJohnsChurch.org.

This offer made by WCVE Richmond.

(upbeat bluegrass music) Funding for "Liberty or Death" was generously provided by The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty.

Modeled after the life and philosophy of Patrick Henry.

One of the greatest patriots and orators of the American Revolutionary period.

And by Robins Foundation.

Funding was also provided by Garland and Agnus Taylor Gray Foundation.

A supporting organization of the Community Foundation.

Serving Richmond and Central Virginia.

And by Thomas F. Jeffress Memorial.

And by St. Christopher's School, Class of 2014.

Proud to present their 5th grade gift in support of "Liberty or Death."

>>Give me liberty or give me death!

(bright music)