Patrick Henry: Resolutions in Opposition to the Stamp Act

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Based largely on his popularity arising from the Parson's Cause, Henry was first elected to the House of Burgesses in 1765. The timing was auspicious. After Britain had won the Seven Years' War in 1763, it faced a massive burden of debt and sought to retrieve some of its cost from the American colonies without waiting for the colonies to grant funds, as had occurred in the past. British imposition of a “stamp tax” in 1765 on all legal documents, commercial shipping documents, newspapers and even playing cards, led to an outcry against “taxation without representation.”

Senior members of Virginia's hierarchy had supported staid petitions to Parliament asking that the proposed Stamp Act not be adopted, but word arrived during the 1765 assembly session that their protests had not been heard and taxes would be imposed. Henry, having joined the House of Burgesses on May 20, waited until late in the legislative session and then brought to the Committee of the Whole House on May 29, 1765, a set of resolutions building upon the petition that had been adopted in December 1764 and forcefully challenging Parliament's authority (and implicitly challenging control of the House by its senior members). After a heated debate, Henry's proposed preamble was deleted, but five of seven resolutions were adopted by the House on May 30, the last by a single vote, reportedly leading the conservative speaker of the House, Peyton Randolph, to declare “By God, I would have given 500 guineas for a single vote” (Morgan and Morgan, p. 125). Henry left for home that evening, and the next day a further reduced House withdrew the fifth resolution.

Before the final vote in Virginia, Henry and his allies apparently sent copies of the draft resolutions to newspapers throughout the colonies. The result was that several newspapers printed all seven resolutions (including two so violently opposed to parliamentary authority that Henry had not even offered them in the Virginia House), and a number of newspapers printed six or five resolutions; few people recognized that Virginia ultimately supported only four. The net effect was to inflame colonial opposition to Britain, encourage similar resolutions in several colonies, and feed Henry's fame as a defender of American liberty.

Even today, the lineage of the resolutions is somewhat unclear. While resolutions closely resembling the first four resolutions published in the Maryland Gazette (those given here) were adopted by the Virginia House of Burgesses, there is some question as to the nature of the fifth resolution initially adopted and as to the origin of the two additional resolutions (in light of the fact that a document in Henry's hand found with his papers refers to only the first five resolutions). The best surmise is that the fifth resolution was adopted and withdrawn the next day, after Henry's departure, and that Henry was prepared to offer the even more strident sixth and seventh resolutions but decided not to do so given that the fifth had barely passed. (Governor Francis Fauquier reported to authorities in England that the radicals had two additional, more violent resolutions that they had decided to withhold.)

Of course, Henry supported his proposed resolves with another passionate speech. While there is no official report of his speech, and accounts vary, by all accounts Henry spellbound the burgesses. John Tyler, Sr. (father of the future president John Tyler, Jr.) made this report of Henry's speech:

While descanting on the tyranny of the obnoxious Act, [he] exclaimed in a voice and with a gesture which startled the House: “Tarquin and Caesar had each his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third”—“Treason!” shouted the Speaker. “Treason! Treason!” echoed from every part of the House. Without faltering for an instant, but rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the Speaker an eye which seemed to flash fire, Mr. Henry added, with the most thrilling emphasis—“may profit by their example! If this be treason, make the most of it.” (Henry, 1891, vol. 1, p. 86).

It also seems likely from several sources that Henry apologized to the House if the heat of his words offended, but this was an old lawyer's tactic—the message had been conveyed. At this point Henry was the unquestioned champion of the young faction of radicals rising in the House of Burgesses and insisting on protection of American liberties.