Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/30

 FATHERS OF THE REVOLUTION

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his lather. To add to his misfortunes, his dwelling house was burned, together with his furniture. He then sold some of his negroes and with the proceeds purchased a stock of goods for a country store. Two years' experience found him in debt. He thereupon commenced the study of law, and within six weeks after taking up "Coke upon Littleton" and "Digest of the Virginiii Acts." he appeared before Peyton and John Randolph, George Wythe. Robert C. Nich- olas and Edmund Pendleton, at Williams- burg, to be examined for admission to the bar. The Randolphs signed the license, but Wythe refused, while Nicholas and Pendle- ton, on promise of future reading, also sign- ed the license. Henry appears to have been sensible to his deficiencies, for he continued his studies some months before beginning to l.ractice. On November 3. 1763, he was re- tained by the colony in the celebrated "par- sons' cause,'* involving the constitutionality c\ the "option law," also known as the "two- penny act," passed by the Virginia legisla- ture in 1757. He discussed the mutual re- lations and reciprocal duties of the King to his subjects and of the clergy to their par- ishioners, and when he declared that the Vving who wolild insist on such a principle as advanced would, instead of remaining the father of his people, degenerate into a ty- rant and would forfeit all his rights to the obedience of his subjects, the murmur of "treason" ran through the court-house. When the jury brought in a verdict of one penny for the plaintiff, the people bore the young advocate on their shoulders in tri- umph around the court-yard. Patrick Henry, in the Hanover court-house, had > truck the keynote of the American revo- lution. In 1765 he was elected to the house

of burgesses. He took his seat May 20, and met all his examiners of two years before except John Randolph, besides many other distinguished statesmen of Virginia. Nine days after he had taken his seat he offered resolutions denying the right of Great Britain to enforce the Stamp Act in Vir- ginia. Peyton Randolph, Pendleton, Wythe, and others opposed the resolutions, but after what Jefferson characterized a "most bloody" debate, Henry carried his resolu- tions by a majority of one. It was in this debate that he electrified the house with "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third

" "Treason! treason!" re-echoed from

every part of the house. Without faltering, but rising to a loftier attitude and fixing on the speaker an eye which seemed to flash fire, Henry completed his sentence, "may profit by their example. If this be treason make the most of it." From that moment Patrick Henry was the political leader of Virginia. In 1769 he was admitted to prac- tice in the general court and attained emi- nence in criminal cases. In May. 1773. he I'.elped in organizing and was a member of the committee of correspondence. In 1774 he was delegate to the Virginia convention, the first public assembly to recommend an annual general Congress. He was a dele- gate to the Continental Congress, 1774-76. and opened his first session by a speech in which he declared, "I am not a Virginian, but an .American." He served on the com- niittee to prepare the address to the King, but his draft was too advanced for the con- servative party, and the address was modi- fied. When the proposition of Joseph Gal- loway for a plan of reconciliation with Eng- land was before Congress and apparently

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