The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or sl… - Patrick Henry
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The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery
Patrick Henry (29 May 1736 – 6 June 1799) was an American attorney, planter and politician who became known as an orator during the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. A U.S. Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786. Henry led the opposition to the Stamp Act 1765 and is remembered for the "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech attributed to him. Along with Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, he is regarded as one of the most influential champions of Republicanism and an invested promoter of the American Revolution and its fight for independence.
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Wikimedia Commons, George Bagby Matthews (1857 - 1943), after Thomas Sully (1783-1872) (Public domain / CC0)
Portrait from Wikimedia Commons. Credit: George Bagby Matthews (1857 - 1943), after Thomas Sully (1783-1872). Used under Public domain / CC0. Processed and styled by Quotewise.
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Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
Give me liberty, or give me death!
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[From a speech given at Saint John's Church in Richmond, Virginia on March 23, 1775 to the Virginia House of Burgesses; as first published in print in 1817 in William Wirt's Life and Character of Patrick Henry.]
