Patrick Henry

Henry was born in Hanover County, Virginia, in 1736, failed at farming and storekeeping, and taught himself law well enough to be admitted to the bar. His gift for speaking became clear in the Parsons' Cause of 1763, when his argument against the royal prerogative made him famous overnight.

Elected to the House of Burgesses in 1765, he introduced the Virginia Resolves against the Stamp Act and carried them with a speech so bold that some members cried treason. In 1775 he told the Virginia Convention that he knew not what course others might take but that as for him, give him liberty or give him death, and the colony was soon at war.

He served as Virginia's first governor and refused to attend the Constitutional Convention, fearing that the new frame of government would swallow the states and the liberties it was meant to protect. His opposition helped produce the demand for a bill of rights. He died at Red Hill in 1799.

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