Moses Coit Tyler

Upon this mortifying close of a military career which had opened with so much expectation and even Éclat, Patrick Henry returned, early in March, 1776, to his home in the county of Hanover,—a home on which then rested the shadow of a great sorrow. In the midst of the public engagements and excitements which absorbed him during the previous year, his wife, Sarah, the wife of his youth, the mother of his six children, had passed away. His own subsequent release from public labor, however bitter in its occasion, must have brought to him a great solace in the few weeks of repose which he then had under his own roof, with the privilege of ministering to the happiness of his motherless children, and of enjoying once more their loving companionship and sympathy.

But in such a crisis of his country’s fate, such a man as Patrick Henry could not be permitted long to remain in seclusion; and the promptness and the heartiness with which he was now summoned back into the service of the public as a civilian, after the recent humiliations of his military [Pg 190] career, were accented, perhaps, on the part of his neighbors, by something of the fervor of intended compensation, if not of intended revenge. For, in the mean time, the American colonies had been swiftly advancing, along a path strewn with corpses and wet with blood, towards the doctrine that a total separation from the mother-country,—a thing hitherto contemplated by them only as a disaster and a crime,—might after all be neither, but on the contrary, the only resource left to them in their desperate struggle for political existence. This supreme question, it was plain, was to confront the very next Virginia convention, which was under appointment to meet early in the coming May. Almost at once, therefore, after his return home, Patrick Henry was elected by his native county to represent it in that convention.

On Monday morning, the 6th of May, the convention gathered at Williamsburg for its first meeting. On its roll of members we see many of those names which have become familiar to us in the progress of this history,—the names of those sturdy and well-trained leaders who guided Virginia during all that stormy period,—Pendleton, Cary, Mason, Nicholas, Bland, the Lees, Mann Page, Dudley Digges, Wythe, Edmund Randolph, and a few others. For the first time also, on such a roll, we meet the name of James Madison, an accomplished young political philosopher, then but four years from the inspiring instruction of President Witherspoon at Princeton. But while a few [Pg 191] very able men had places in that convention, it was, at the time, by some observers thought to contain an unusually large number of incompetent persons. Three days after the opening of the session Landon Carter wrote to Washington:—

“I could have wished that ambition had not so visibly seized so much ignorance all over the colony, as it seems to have done; for this present convention abounds with too many of the inexperienced creatures to navigate our bark on this dangerous coast; so that I fear the few skilful pilots who have hitherto done tolerably well to keep her clear from destruction, will not be able to conduct her with common safety any longer.”[231]

The earliest organization of the House was, on the part of the friends of Patrick Henry, made the occasion for a momentary flash of resentment against Edmund Pendleton, as the man who was believed by them to have been the guiding mind of the Committee of Safety in its long series of restraints upon the military activity of their chief. At the opening of the convention Pendleton was nominated for its president,—a most suitable nomination, and one which under ordinary circumstances would have been carried by acclamation. Thomas Johnson, however, a stanch follower of Patrick Henry, at once presented an opposing candidate; and although Pendleton was elected, he was not elected without a contest, or without this significant hint that the fires of indignation against [Pg 192] him were still burning in the hearts of a strong party in that house and throughout the colony.

The convention lasted just two months lacking a day; and in all the detail and drudgery of its business, as the journal indicates, Patrick Henry bore a very large part. In the course of the session, he seems to have served on perhaps a majority of all its committees. On the 6th of May, he was made a member of the committee of privileges and elections; on the 7th, of a committee “to bring in an ordinance to encourage the making of salt, saltpetre, and gunpowder;” on the 8th, of the committee on “propositions and grievances;” on the 21st, of a committee “to inquire for a proper hospital for the reception and accommodation of the sick and wounded soldiers;” on the 22d, of a committee to inquire into the truth of a complaint made by the Indians respecting encroachments on their lands; on the 23d, of a committee to bring in an ordinance for augmenting the ninth regiment, for enlisting four troops of horse, and for raising men for the defence of the frontier counties; on the 4th of June, of a committee to inquire into the causes for the depreciation of paper money in the colony, and into the rates at which goods are sold at the public store; on the 14th of June, of a committee to prepare an address to be sent by Virginia to the Shawanese Indians; on the 15th of June, of a committee to bring in amendments to the ordinance for prescribing a mode of punishment for the enemies of [Pg 193] America in this colony; and on the 22d of June, of a committee to prepare an ordinance “for enabling the present magistrates to continue the administration of justice, and for settling the general mode of proceedings in criminal and other cases.” The journal also mentions his frequent activity in the House in the presentation of reports from some of these committees: for example, from the committee on propositions and grievances, on the 16th of May, on the 22d of May, and on the 15th of June. On the latter occasion, he made to the House three detailed reports on as many different topics.[232]

Of course, the question overshadowing all others in that convention was the question of independence. General Charles Lee, whose military duties just then detained him at Williamsburg, and who was intently watching the currents of political thought in all the colonies, assured Washington, in a letter written on the 10th of May, that “a noble spirit” possessed the convention; and that the members were “almost unanimous for independence,” the only disagreement being “in their sentiments about the mode.”[233] That Patrick Henry was in favor of independence hardly needs to be mentioned; yet it does need to be mentioned that he was among those who disagreed with some of his associates “about the mode.” While he was as eager and as resolute for independence as [Pg 194] any man, he doubted whether the time had then fully come for declaring independence. He thought that the declaration should be so timed as to secure, beyond all doubt, two great conditions of success,—first, the firm union of the colonies themselves, and secondly, the friendship of foreign powers, particularly of France and Spain. For these reasons, he would have had independence delayed until a confederation of the colonies could be established by written articles, which, he probably supposed, would take but a few weeks; and also until American agents could have time to negotiate with the French and Spanish courts.

On the first day of the session, General Charles Lee, who was hot for an immediate declaration of independence, seems to have had a conversation upon the subject with Patrick Henry, during which the latter stated his reasons for some postponement of the measure. This led General Lee, on the following day, to write to Henry a letter which is really remarkable, some passages from which will help us the better to understand the public situation, as well as Patrick Henry’s attitude towards it:—

Williamsburg, May 7, 1776.

Dear Sir,—If I had not the highest opinion of your character and liberal way of thinking, I should not venture to address myself to you. And if I were not equally persuaded of the great weight and influence which the transcendent abilities you possess must naturally confer, I should not give myself the trouble of writing, nor you [Pg 195] the trouble of reading this long letter. Since our conversation yesterday, my thoughts have been solely employed on the great question, whether independence ought or ought not to be immediately declared. Having weighed the argument on both sides, I am clearly of the opinion that we must, as we value the liberties of America, or even her existence, without a moment’s delay declare for independence.… The objection you made yesterday, if I understood you rightly, to an immediate declaration, was by many degrees the most specious, indeed, it is the only tolerable, one that I have yet heard. You say, and with great justice, that we ought previously to have felt the pulse of France and Spain. I more than believe, I am almost confident, that it has been done.… But admitting that we are utter strangers to their sentiments on the subject, and that we run some risk of this declaration being coldly received by these powers, such is our situation that the risk must be ventured.

On one side there are the most probable chances of our success, founded on the certain advantages which must manifest themselves to French understandings by a treaty of alliance with America.… The superior commerce and marine force of England were evidently established on the monopoly of her American trade. The inferiority of France, in these two capital points, consequently had its source in the same origin. Any deduction from this monopoly must bring down her rival in proportion to this deduction. The French are and always have been sensible of these great truths.… But allowing that there can be no certainty, but mere chances, in our favor, I do insist upon it that these chances render it our duty to adopt the measure, as, by procrastination, our ruin is inevitable. Should it now [Pg 196] be determined to wait the result of a previous formal negotiation with France, a whole year must pass over our heads before we can be acquainted with the result. In the mean time, we are to struggle through a campaign, without arms, ammunition, or any one necessary of war. Disgrace and defeat will infallibly ensue; the soldiers and officers will become so disappointed that they will abandon their colors, and probably never be persuaded to make another effort.

But there is another consideration still more cogent. I can assure you that the spirit of the people cries out for this declaration; the military, in particular, men and officers, are outrageous on the subject; and a man of your excellent discernment need not be told how dangerous it would be, in our present circumstances, to dally with the spirit, or disappoint the expectations, of the bulk of the people. May not despair, anarchy, and final submission be the bitter fruits? I am firmly persuaded that they will; and, in this persuasion, I most devoutly pray that you may not merely recommend, but positively lay injunctions on, your servants in Congress to embrace a measure so necessary to our salvation.

Yours, most sincerely,
Charles Lee.[234]

Just eight days after that letter was written, the Virginia convention took what may, at first glance, seem to be the precise action therein described as necessary; and moreover, they did so under the influence, in part, of Patrick Henry’s [Pg 197] powerful advocacy of it. On the 15th of May, after considerable debate, one hundred and twelve members being present, the convention unanimously resolved,

“That the delegates appointed to represent this colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the crown or Parliament of Great Britain; and that they give the assent of this colony to such declaration, and to whatever measures may be thought proper and necessary by the Congress for forming foreign alliances and a confederation of the colonies, at such time, and in the manner, as to them shall seem best: provided, that the power of forming government for, and the regulations of the internal concerns of, each colony, be left to the respective colonial legislatures.”[235]

On the testimony of Edmund Randolph, who was a member of the convention, it is now known that this momentous resolution “was drawn by Pendleton, was offered in convention by Nelson, and was advocated on the floor by Henry.”[236] Any one who will carefully study it, however, will discover that this resolution was the result of a compromise; and especially, that it is so framed as to meet Patrick Henry’s views, at least to the extent of avoiding the demand for an immediate declaration,[Pg 198] and of leaving it to Congress to determine the time and manner of making it. Accordingly, in letters of his, written five days afterward to his most intimate friends in Congress, we see that his mind was still full of anxiety about the two great prerequisites,—a certified union among the colonies, and a friendly arrangement with France. “Ere this reaches you,” he wrote to Richard Henry Lee, “our resolution for separating from Britain will be handed you by Colonel Nelson. Your sentiments as to the necessary progress of this great affair correspond with mine. For may not France, ignorant of the great advantages to her commerce we intend to offer, and of the permanency of that separation which is to take place, be allured by the partition you mention? To anticipate, therefore, the efforts of the enemy by sending instantly American ambassadors to France, seems to me absolutely necessary. Delay may bring on us total ruin. But is not a confederacy of our States previously necessary?”[237]

On the same day, he wrote, also, a letter to John Adams, in which he developed still more vigorously his views as to the true order in which the three great measures,—confederation, foreign alliances, and independence,—should be dealt with:—

“Before this reaches you, the resolution for finally separating from Britain will be handed to Congress by [Pg 199] Colonel Nelson. I put up with it in the present form for the sake of unanimity. ’T is not quite so pointed as I could wish. Excuse me for telling you of what I think of immense importance; ’t is to anticipate the enemy at the French court. The half of our continent offered to France, may induce her to aid our destruction, which she certainly has the power to accomplish. I know the free trade with all the States would be more beneficial to her than any territorial possessions she might acquire. But pressed, allured, as she will be,—but, above all, ignorant of the great thing we mean to offer,—may we not lose her? The consequence is dreadful. Excuse me again. The confederacy:—that must precede an open declaration of independency and foreign alliances. Would it not be sufficient to confine it, for the present, to the objects of offensive and defensive nature, and a guaranty of the respective colonial rights? If a minute arrangement of things is attempted, such as equal representation, etc., etc., you may split and divide; certainly will delay the French alliance, which with me is everything.”[238]

In the mean time, however, many of the people of Virginia had received with enthusiastic approval the news of the great step taken by their convention on the 15th of May. Thus “on the day following,” says the “Virginia Gazette,” published at Williamsburg, “the troops in this city, with the train of artillery, were drawn up and went through their firings and various other military manoeuvres, with the greatest exactness; a continental union flag was displayed upon the capitol;[Pg 200] and in the evening many of the inhabitants illuminated their houses.”[239] Moreover, the great step taken by the Virginia convention, on the day just mentioned, committed that body to the duty of taking at once certain other steps of supreme importance. They were about to cast off the government of Great Britain: it was necessary for them, therefore, to provide some government to be put in the place of it. Accordingly, in the very same hour in which they instructed their delegates in Congress to propose a declaration of independence, they likewise resolved, “That a committee be appointed to prepare a declaration of rights, and such a plan of government as will be most likely to maintain peace and order in this colony, and secure substantial and equal liberty to the people.”[240]

Of this committee, Patrick Henry was a member; and with him were associated Archibald Cary, Henry Lee, Nicholas, Edmund Randolph, Bland, Dudley Digges, Paul Carrington, Mann Page, Madison, George Mason, and others. The two tasks before the committee—that of drafting a statement of rights, and that of drafting a constitution for the new State of Virginia—must have pressed heavily upon its leading members. In the work of creating a new state government, Virginia was somewhat in advance of the other colonies; and for this reason, as well as on account of its general preËminence among the colonies, the course which it should take in this crisis was [Pg 201] watched with extraordinary attention. John Adams said, at the time, “We all look up to Virginia for examples.”[241] Besides, in Virginia itself, as well as in the other colonies, there was an unsettled question as to the nature of the state governments which were then to be instituted. Should they be strongly aristocratic and conservative, with a possible place left for the monarchical feature; or should the popular elements in each colony be more largely recognized, and a decidedly democratic character given to these new constitutions? On this question, two strong parties existed in Virginia. In the first place, there were the old aristocratic families, and those who sympathized with them. These people, numerous, rich, cultivated, influential, in objecting to the unfair encroachments of British authority, had by no means intended to object to the nature of the British constitution, and would have been pleased to see that constitution, in all its essential features, retained in Virginia. This party was led by such men as Robert Carter Nicholas, Carter Braxton, and Edmund Pendleton. In the second place, there were the democrats, the reformers, the radicals,—who were inclined to take the opportunity furnished by Virginia’s rejection of British authority as the occasion for rejecting, within the new State of Virginia, all the aristocratic and monarchical features of the British Constitution itself. This party was led by such men as Patrick Henry,[Pg 202] Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and George Mason. Which party was to succeed in stamping its impress the more strongly on the new plan for government in Virginia?

Furthermore, it is important to observe that, on this very question then at issue in Virginia, two pamphlets, taking opposite sides, were, just at that moment, attracting the notice of Virginians,—both pamphlets being noble in tone, of considerable learning, very suggestive, and very well expressed. The first, entitled “Thoughts on Government,” though issued anonymously, was soon known to be by John Adams. It advocated the formation of state constitutions on the democratic model; a lower house elected for a single year by the people; this house to elect an upper house of twenty or thirty members, who were to have a negative on the lower house, and to serve, likewise, for a single year; these two houses to elect a governor, who was to have a negative on them both, and whose term of office should also end with the year; while the judges, and all other officers, civil or military, were either to be appointed by the governor with the advice of the upper house, or to be chosen directly by the two houses themselves.[242] The second pamphlet, which was in part a reply to the first, was entitled “Address to the Convention of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia, on the subject of Government in general, and recommending a particular form to their consideration.”[Pg 203] It purported to be by “A native of the Colony.” Although the pamphlet was sent into Virginia under strong recommendations from Carter Braxton, one of the Virginian delegates in Congress, the authorship was then unknown to the public. It advocated the formation of state constitutions on a model far less democratic: first, a lower house, the members of which were to be elected for three years by the people; secondly, an upper house of twenty-four members, to be elected for life by the lower house; thirdly, a governor, to be elected for life by the lower house; fourthly, all judges, all military officers, and all inferior civil ones, to be appointed by the governor.[243]

Such was the question over which the members of the committee, appointed on the 15th of May, must soon have come into sharp conflict. At its earliest meetings, apparently, Henry found the aristocratic tendencies of some of his associates so strong as to give him considerable uneasiness; and by his letter to John Adams, written on the 20th of the month, we may see that he was then complaining of the lack of any associate of adequate ability on his own side of the question. When we remember, however, that both James Madison and George Mason were members of that committee, we can but read Patrick Henry’s words with some astonishment.[244] The explanation is probably [Pg 204] to be found in the fact that Madison was not placed on the committee until the 16th, and, being very young and very unobtrusive, did not at first make his true weight felt; while Mason was not placed on the committee until the working day just before Henry’s letter was written, and very likely had not then met with it, and may not, at the moment, have been remembered by Henry as a member of it. At any rate, this is the way in which our eager Virginia democrat, in that moment of anxious conflict over the form of the future government of his State, poured out his anxieties to his two most congenial political friends in Congress. To Richard Henry Lee he wrote:—

On the same day, he wrote as follows to John Adams:—

To this hearty and even brotherly letter John Adams wrote from Philadelphia, on the 3d of June, a fitting reply, in the course of which he said, with respect to Henry’s labors in making a constitution for Virginia: “The subject is of infinite moment, and perhaps more than adequate to the abilities of any man in America. I know of none so competent to the task as the author of the first Virginia resolutions against the Stamp Act, [Pg 207] who will have the glory with posterity of beginning and concluding this great revolution. Happy Virginia, whose constitution is to be framed by so masterly a builder!” Then, with respect to the aristocratic features in the Constitution, as proposed by “A Native of the Colony,” John Adams exclaims:—

On the 12th of June, the convention adopted without a dissenting voice its celebrated “declaration of rights,” a compact, luminous, and powerful statement, in sixteen articles, of those great fundamental rights that were henceforth to be “the basis and foundation of government” in Virginia, and were to stamp their character upon that constitution on which the committee were even then engaged. Perhaps no political document of [Pg 208] that time is more worthy of study in connection with the genesis, not only of our state constitutions, but of that of the nation likewise. That the first fourteen articles of the declaration were written by George Mason has never been disputed: that he also wrote the fifteenth and the sixteenth articles is now claimed by his latest and ablest biographer,[249] but in opposition to the testimony of Edmund Randolph, who was a member both of the convention itself and of the particular committee in charge of the declaration, and who has left on record the statement that those articles were the work of Patrick Henry.[250] The fifteenth article was in these words: “That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” The sixteenth article is an assertion of the doctrine of religious liberty,—the first time that it was ever asserted by authority in Virginia. The original draft, in which the writer followed very closely the language used on that subject by the Independents in the Assembly of Westminster, stood as follows:—

The historic significance of this stately assertion of religious liberty in Virginia can be felt only by those who remember that, at that time, the Church of England was the established church of Virginia, and that the laws of Virginia then restrained the exercise there of every form of religious dissent, unless compliance had been made with the conditions of the toleration act of the first year of William and Mary. At the very moment, probably, when the committee were engaged in considering the tremendous innovation contained in this article, “sundry persons of the Baptist church in the county of Prince William” were putting their names to a petition earnestly imploring the convention, “That they be allowed to worship God in their own way, without interruption; that they be permitted to maintain their own ministers and none others; that they may be married, buried, and the like, without paying the clergy of other denominations;” and that, by the concession to them of such religious freedom, they be enabled to “unite with their brethren, and to the utmost [Pg 210] of their ability promote the common cause” of political freedom.[252] Of course the adoption of the sixteenth article virtually carried with it every privilege which these people asked for. The author of that article, whether it was George Mason or Patrick Henry, was a devout communicant of the established church of Virginia; and thus, the first great legislative act for the reform of the civil constitution of that church, and for its deliverance from the traditional duty and curse of persecution, was an act which came from within the church itself.

On Monday, the 24th of June, the committee, through Archibald Cary, submitted to the convention their plan of a constitution for the new State of Virginia; and on Saturday, the 29th of June, this plan passed its third reading, and was unanimously adopted. A glance at the document will show that in the sharp struggle between the aristocratic and the democratic forces in the convention, the latter had signally triumphed. It provided for a lower House of Assembly, whose members were to be elected annually by the people, in the proportion of two members from each county; for an upper House of Assembly to consist of twenty-four members, who were to be elected annually by the people, in the proportion of one member from each of the senatorial districts into which the several counties should be grouped; for a governor, to be elected annually by joint ballot of both [Pg 211] houses, and not to “continue in that office longer than three years successively,” nor then to be eligible again for the office until after the lapse of four years from the close of his previous term; for a privy council of eight members, for delegates in Congress, and for judges in the several courts, all to be elected by joint ballot of the two Houses; for justices of the peace to be appointed by the governor and the privy council; and, finally, for an immediate election, by the convention itself, of a governor, and a privy council, and such other officers as might be necessary for the introduction of the new government.[253]

In accordance with the last provision of this Constitution, the convention at once proceeded to cast their ballots for governor, with the following result:—

By resolution, Patrick Henry was then formally declared to be the governor of the commonwealth of Virginia, to continue in office until the close of that session of the Assembly which should be held after the end of the following March.

On the same day on which this action was taken, he wrote, in reply to the official notice of his election, the following letter of acceptance,—a graceful, manly, and touching composition:—[Pg 212]

[Pg 214]
ToC