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Revolutionary firebrand Patrick Henry bellowed, “Give me liberty or give me death!” while proposing to fellow Virginia leaders that the colony raise troops to battle the British on this day in history, March 23, 1775.
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” the rousing orator reportedly thundered before the Second Virginia Convention at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond.
“Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, MARCH 22, 1934, MASTERS TOURNAMENT TEES OFF FOR FIRST TIME IN AUGUST, GEORGIA
His demand that Virginia form citizen-soldier companies of cavalry and militia in the cause of liberty proved prescient.
Just four weeks later, on April 19, open hostilities broke out between armed colonists and crown at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, igniting the American Revolution.
American statesman Patrick Henry (1736-1799) delivers his patriotic “Give me liberty, or give me death!” speech before the Virginia Assembly, March 23, 1775. (Original artwork printed by Currier & Ives/photo by MPI/Getty Images)
Henry’s fellow Virginian, George Washington, arrived in New England in July to lead its militiamen.
It was a symbolic and physical union of the far-flung northern and southern colonies in common heroic cause against the age-old system of hereditary monarchy that had ruled the world for time immemorial.
“I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” — Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775
Washington most likely heard Henry’s stirring call to arms.
He was one of about 120 American patriots from Virginia, including Declaration of Independence signatories Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee and Benjamin Harrison, called to consider the course of the colony’s future at the convention.
The first shots of the American Revolution were fired in Lexington,…
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