Patrick Henry: “Liberty or Death” Speech

Context

In May 1774, John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore and the British governor of the Virginia Colony, dissolved Virginia's colonial assembly because of its participation in the Committees of Correspondence (groups organized by colonists to obtain advance knowledge of acts of Parliament that had an impact on the American colonies). Believing that the governor's act was an effort to curb colonial self-government, Henry began in November 1774 to organize a volunteer militia in his home county of Hanover. Clearly he was moving toward a position of armed opposition to the British Crown. Both Governor Dunmore and Henry also were responding to the actions of other colonies, especially Massachusetts, which as early as 1773 had initiated its own Committee of Correspondence. The question was how far colonists were prepared to venture in asserting and defending their rights.

Some members of the Virginia House of Burgesses considered Henry's views extreme. They were prepared to defend colonial rights, but they balked at the idea of military resistance to acts of Parliament. Henry's resolutions submitted to the House of Burgesses affirming not only the colony's right to raise a militia but the urgent need to do so alarmed many of his colleagues. They believed that a negotiated settlement could be reached with the mother country, provided that the colonists acted with discretion and moderation. To Henry, such temporizing only weakened the rights he was attempting to preserve. While caution and prudence might seem the wisest course, in fact it would doom the colonies to servitude. Great Britain was already taking measures that showed it had little interest in recognizing colonial rights, Henry pointed out to the burgesses. He believed the moderates were no longer responding to the reality of the situation, which was one of crisis.

It was time for immediate and decisive action. Henry's powerful speech in March 1775 acknowledged his colleagues' concerns about the consequences of open resistance to royal authority, but he was asserting that the time for compromise had already elapsed and that the threat to liberty was so grave that calls for conciliation were no longer beneficial. The choice he described was stark: The colonists had to assert their rights with force. To do otherwise was not merely to accept the status quo but also to acquiesce to a diminution of liberty that would result in nothing less than slavery. Henry believed that moderation was not an option because the status quo was an illusion; colonial self-government had already eroded to a point that made it impossible for the colonists to retrieve their rights from royal authority.

Henry's appeal constituted an alarm and a call to the individual conscience. He was uniting his interpretation of recent history with his own demand for liberty. What made his speech so powerful was his willingness not merely to urge a radical course of action but also to say that it was vitally necessary for his fellow colonists and that he was willing to risk his own life in pursuit of their common desire for freedom.