Patrick Henry: Enemy of the State
http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcmaken/mcmaken93.html
by Ryan McMaken

Little is said today of Patrick Henry. He still makes it into a book on
American history here and there primarily because he was without a
doubt one of the greatest (if not the greatest) orator of his
generation, and when the American revolution became imminent in the
1770’s he was among those who had the greatest grasp of when the
conflict would come and what it would bring. 

The episode in his life that apparently warrants mention by mainstream
historians is his speech to the House of Burgesses – which was meeting
illegally without the consent of the Crown’s governor. It was late
March 1775 – before the farmers of Lexington and Concord had had the
opportunity to humiliate the most powerful army on Earth – and Henry
knew that a clash of arms was near. In an effort to win support for a
bill that would raise an army for Virginia and illegally appoint
officers without the consent of the Crown, Henry clamored for the
Virginia militia to take arms against the British:

"The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north
will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms…Let it come. I
repeat, Sir, Let it come…Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be
purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty
or give me death!" 

Today, these comments are treated as hyperbole, a mere gentleman’s
exercise in arousing legislators to action. With Henry, nothing could
be further from the truth. For as Murray Rothbard has pointed out
numerous times, the court historians of our age would have us believe
that the American revolution was no revolution at all, but merely an
unfortunate disagreement among refined compatriots. But for Patrick
Henry – and he was certainly not alone in such sentiments – British
rule was nothing short of barbaric tyranny, a despotism to be ripped
from American soil no matter what the price in blood. 

In 1775, Patrick Henry was not simply attempting to arouse the passions
of his fellow Virginians. He was suggesting a practical course of
action: arming the population of Virginia against the troops of the
British Crown. By late April he was making good on his own
exhortations, and following the British seizure of a cache of arms
owned by the Virginia militia, Henry himself led a militia company in a
raid on the British capturing British funds as compensation for the
theft of the arms. The governor of Virginia declared Henry an outlaw,
and he went into hiding as a champion of the Revolution. 

Henry never wavered in his support of American independence during the
eight years of the Revolution, but perhaps his most valiant effort to
preserve American liberties came with the ratification debates over the
Constitution of 1787. Henry was a defender of the Articles of
Confederation, the government formed during the waning days of the
Revolutions, and which had provided the colonies peace and
international recognition ever since. 

At the Virginia ratification debates of 1788, Patrick Henry denied that
the propaganda of the Federalists was based on anything but scare
tactics, and defied the Federalists to provide convincing evidence that
the Articles of Confederation had not provided what the colonists had
fought for in the Revolution. Indeed, Henry contended, to adopt the new
Constitution would be akin to a Revolution greater than the one just
finished, except this revolution was of an older variety: 

"Revolutions like this have happened in almost every country in Europe:
similar examples are to be found in ancient Greece and ancient Rome:
instances of the people losing their liberty by their own carelessness
and the ambition of a few. We are cautioned…against faction and
turbulence: I acknowledge that licentiousness is dangerous, and that it
ought to be provided against: I acknowledge also the new form of
Government may effectually prevent it: Yet, there is another thing it
will as effectually do: it will oppress and ruin the people…I am not
well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollection whether
liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the
people or by the tyranny of rulers? I imagine, Sir, you will find the
balance on the side of tyranny."

The real reason behind scrapping the old constitution, Henry suspected,
was really that of garnering more power for those who had already
tasted the perks of consolidated government. They hid this behind a
façade of "economic prosperity," but Patrick Henry contended that such
things were not the business of governments: "You are not to inquire
how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and
prosperous people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty
ought to be the end of your government." For when government gives free
men the power to secure their own rights, economic prosperity can only
follow. But when men of government come to claiming the need to tax to
increase your liberty and prosperity, beware. After all, Henry tells
us, liberty is the foundation of prosperity, not the other way around.
Nations like Great Britain become great "not because their government
is strong and energetic," but because "liberty is its direct end and
foundation." (Fortunately, Henry didn’t live to see the nightmarish
British Empire of the 19th century.)

In addition, Henry was not one to rely on parchment barriers to keep
the grasping hand of the state at bay. To believe that mere laws,
created by men, could keep a mighty government at bay is a delusion – a
fool’s game of wishful thinking. Just as he had prophesized before the
beginning of the Revolution, liberty would never be preserved by
anything but force: 

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who
approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but
downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably
ruined…The Honorable Gentleman who presides told us, that to prevent
abuses in our government, we will assemble in Convention, recall our
delegated powers, and punish our servants for abusing the trust reposed
to them. Oh, Sir, we should have fine times indeed, if to punish
tyrants, it were only necessary to assemble the people! Your arms
wherewith you could defend yourselves are gone…Did you ever read of any
revolution in any nation, brought about by the punishment of those in
power, inflicted by those who had no power at all? A standing army we
shall have also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny: And how
are you to punish them? Will you order them to be punished? Who shall
obey these orders? 

Henry knew there was but one means to preserving liberty: a de jure and
de facto separation of power between the independent states and an
American Union. Anything less was mere imagination. A Congressman here
and a Senator there does nothing to preserve liberty. For where the
force resides, there also will the power be. The states will merely be
reduced to bureaucratic districts of the consolidated government. 

Looking back across the centuries, it is difficult to contend that
Henry was wrong. He had boycotted the Constitutional Convention of 1787
because, as he so eloquently put it, "I smell a rat" and suspected the
worst: that the independent colonies that had thrived for over a
century were to be herded under one consolidated government, a vast
government apparatus founded not on liberty, but on the bureaucratic
dreams of monarchists and mercantilists like Alexander Hamilton. 

In his final stand against the new order, Patrick Henry presented his
audience with a choice – a choice between empire and liberty:

"If we admit this consolidated government, it will be because we like a
great splendid one. Some way or other we must be a great and mighty
empire; we must have an army, a navy, and a number of things: When the
American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was
different: Liberty, Sir, was then the primary object…But now, Sir, the
American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is
about to convert this country to a powerful and mighty empire." 

And quite an empire it has become. Today, as Americans, half our
incomes are taxed away to that consolidated government; we send our
sons to die toppling dictators armed and financed by those same taxes;
we bleat like sheep for protection from each other and every foreign
bogeyman near and far, and we call it liberty! 

And for most Americans today, Patrick Henry is no doubt seen as a
hopeless romantic, an impractical partisan of an imperfect ideology. He
should have compromised and joined the Convention, we are told. His
vision for America is in the dustbin of history. A fine man for a
revolution perhaps, but of little use for our civilized government of
today. Such are the rationalizations we now must resort to. 

Patrick Henry may have failed to prevent the destruction of the free
states of 18th century America, but he speaks to us across the
centuries. Henry provides us with an eloquent example of those men of
principle who put liberty first and were not afraid to fight for it.
Today, as we beg for scraps at government’s table, perhaps we could
learn a little something about courage and liberty from Mr. Henry. 

Unlike Henry, we have bought the lie that government made us rich, and
that government can keep us that way. We have accepted the farce that
an armed and independent people means nothing in the face of great
dangers in far away lands. Indeed, these are the same lies spouted in
Henry’s time. As Patrick Henry knew, Federalists, the ideological
great-grandfathers of our own tax-happy centralizers, built everything
on fear. Fear of economic decay, fear of foreign enemies, and fear of
disunity. For a civilized and free people, the answers to such fears
could no more be found in the hands of government in 1788 as today.
Indeed, for Henry, it is those hands that are the only true threat to
liberty. 

"Fear is the passion of slaves" Henry tells us, for an armed and
confident people are sure of their liberties, and not afraid to demand
them. But we live in a country ruled by fear. Fear of terrorists, or
criminals, or punishment by the state. How then, can we conclude
anything other than that we are ourselves slaves? It would appear that
we can not, and Patrick Henry would no doubt agree.

December 2, 2003

Ryan McMaken [send him mail rmcmaken@hotmail.com] is a regular 
columnist for LewRockwell.com.

Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com