It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? 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!
I feel strongly that in the words of Mr. Henry’s speech there was utter desperation. At one point the attorney and politician made the comment that there was no longer hope. He spelled it out very explicitly in his speech that there was naught left but to take up arms. They had been pushed into a corner and there was literally nothing left to do but fight. But the question he raised next was “when?” Shall we take up arms now or wait until the people are totally disarmed? There was already chatter that the colonists were weak because the king had soldiers in the homes of the colonists and they were partially disarmed. The people saw and knew what was transpiring in their midst. It was no secret the government wanted its thumb on the people. For the king, it was a matter of control. Controlling the people was the easy part. If you control the land, you control the people by controlling their food. The king had usurped all land unto himself. He believed that everything belonged to him. The quartering of English soldiers in the homes and lands of the colonists guaranteed the king’s ownership and proved to the Americans that the king’s reach was indeed long. Patrick Henry saw the urgency of the situation as the king’s hand was coming into their homes and confiscating their firearms on a whim. Soon, it would be impossible to defend themselves against the king’s yoke of tyranny. Soon it would be too late. Now was the time to take action. To wait was to surrender the will to be free. His appeal was to the God of hosts because there was nothing left to do. He knew the colonists could not defeat Great Britain, but the matter was clear.
We fight, we fight! The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us…we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle…is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
What a powerful message! And he was right! God raised up an unlikely ally in the fight against tyranny. England’s enemy, France. They had a navy and saw in the American colonists a means to defeat England by spreading them thin.
In an attempt to contextualize what was happening in those days, let’s lay a little more backdrop to the history that led up to the American Revolutionary War. Prior to 1763, the American colonists were Englishmen and completely loyal to the king of England. England was suffering, financially, from the Seven Years War (French-Indian War) and needed more resources and money for national reparations. Every citizen of England, and even the king, was subject to a document called the “Magna Carta.” The document was signed some 500 years prior by King John and was an agreement between him and the barons of England that no man is above the law. Apparently King John had been breaking the laws of the land and doing whatever he willed. The Magna Carta (Great Document) meant that there would be equal justice in the land ruled by the king. However, King George III began to enforce unjust laws upon the colonists of America. Their taxes were unreasonably high and they were being taxed excessively. That was just the beginning of their woes. After a decade of pleading and petitions to the king, things only became worse as the king became more and more unruly. Things continued to escalate as the American colonists rejected taxation without representation and the authority of parliament. After the Boston Harbor incident, Great Britain attempted punitive actions against the colonists. American colonists then expelled the royal officials that were assigned to America. Not long after that, Great Britain sent soldiers to the colonies to re-establish British rule. The American patriots defeated them and thus began the American Revolutionary War. As time progressed, the newly formed Congress felt the need to make the declaration for independence official. They then drafted the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Within the verbiage of the declaration was a list of unruly behavior by King George III. The list provided in the Declaration of Independence was probably not an exhaustive one, but was a powerful list, nonetheless.
Being ratified on July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence, now solidified as a part of the U.S. Constitution, enumerated many of the tyrannical behaviors of the king and his treatment of the Americans. Read the Declaration and then the list of the king’s tyranny. See if you can notice anything correlating to where we are today as a nation. They say history repeats itself. I’m smelling quite a few similarities.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners;
refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
The Declaration of Independence and the war against Great Britain was done without a government as we know governments. Congress was a body of patriots that levied the war against a tyrannical government. Fifty-four men, representing thirteen colonies, with differing views at almost every angle, except for the cause of LIBERTY, had to work together to secure liberty for this nation we know today. They had different political beliefs, differing religions, were upper classes and lower classes, yet they worked together to secure LIBERTY and to defend against tyranny.
Before a Constitution could be drawn up, the States were requested to draft their own Constitutions. While the States were drafting their governments, the Articles of Confederation was drafted. It was the first attempt at building a centralized government. There were widespread disagreements on the issue of slavery.
Slavery existed, but it was contrary to the ideals of freedom. There were some patriots who would not compromise and others who saw the need for freedom universally. Because it was not possible to bring everybody on board with the new government, it was decided to leave the issue of slavery out of the Articles of Confederation. The Articles was only an attempt at setting up a new government. It proved to be inadequate. With independence declared and the war against England won, the time had come to form a centralized government. This WAS NOT a popular topic among the weary war-torn patriots, who had just shaken off a tyrannical government. But they were wise men that understood a lack of centralized government would cause a great deal of perplexities in the future, like war between the States and solidarity in case of foreign invasion. The Constitution was drafted first but could not be ratified because some State delegates refused to sign on because there was no Bill of Rights to guarantee sovereign individual rights. Some believed there was no need for a Bill of Rights because it was believed that the Constitution was sufficient for the preservation of individual rights. Nevertheless, they needed unity between the States and to get that, there needed to be appeasement. It would not be harmful to amend the Constitution to insure such rights would not be infringed. The Bill of Rights was formed and went through a series of adjustments, as did the Constitution as a whole, and was passed in 1789.
THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
(Underscored sections have since been amended or superseded)
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Article. I.
Section. 1.
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Section. 2.
The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Number
s, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
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