Establishing background knowledge patrick henry
- 1. Establishing Background Information Who is Patrick Henry? Ms. Mills 7th Grade Language Arts
- 2. Born May 29, 1736 in Hanover County, Virginia Profession - Lawyer, Politician Patrick Henry Elected to Virginia House of Burgesses, 1765 1736 - 1799 Admitted to the Bar of the General Court in Virginia, 1769 Elected to the Continental Congress, 1774 Virginia Colonel of Militia, 1775 Governor of Virginia, 1776-1778, 1784 Died: June 6, 1799
- 3. Patrick Henry, nicknamed “Radical”, during the revolution and for some time after, was synonymous with that word in the minds of colonists and Empire alike. Henry's reputation as a passionate and fiery orator exceeded even that of Samuel Adams. His Stamp Act Resolutions were, arguably, the first shot fired in the Revolutionary War. Patrick Henry's personality was curious, logical, and well- tempered. By the age of 10, his family knew that he would not be a farmer, and he would not apply himself to studies either. At age 21 his father set him up in a business that he bankrupted shortly thereafter. Finally the general public disgust in Hanover and pressure from his young family (he had married at the age of eighteen) caused him to study for six weeks and take the bar exam, which he passed, and begin work as a lawyer.
- 4. In 1764 he moved to Louisa county, Virginia, where, as a lawyer, he argued in defense of broad voting rights (suffrage) before the House of Burgesses. The following year he was elected to the House and soon became its leading radical member. It was that year that he proposed the Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions. In 1774 he represented Virginia in the First Continental Congress where he continued in the role of firebrand. At the outbreak of the revolution, he returned to his native state and lead militia in defense of Virginia's gunpowder store, when the royal Governor spirited it aboard a British ship.
- 5. Henry continually spoke out against British tyranny, and in 1775 his famous "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech, motivated Virginians to bear arms against England and then to vote for independence from England. In 1776, Henry was elected Governor of Virginia. He was re-elected for three terms. He was again elected to the office in 1784. He was in favor of the strongest possible government for the individual states, and a weak federal government. He was most critical of the fact that the constitutional convention was conducted in secret.
- 6. As Governor of Virginia, Patrick Henry fought successful wars on several fronts during the American Revolution. Henry supplied men from Virginia for Washington's Continentals, the regular army. He also supplied men to fight from the state militia forces, aided Daniel Boone and his westerners in Kentucky, which was then a part of Virginia, in holding the Kentucky territory for the Revolutionary forces. Governor Henry ensured that a religious freedom section was included in the Virginia Constitution in July 1776 at the time of Virginia's independence and his election as its first Governor, personally drafting the religious freedom section of the state constitution.
- 7. Governor Patrick Henry led the fight for Religious Freedom, Freedom of Speech and the other Bill of Rights guarantees. This introduced The Bill of Rights to the First United States Congress in June 1789, which were approved by the Congress in September 1789 and were ratified December 15, 1791. See Bill of Rights. President Washington appointed Patrick Henry Secretary of State in 1795, but Henry declined the office. In 1799, President Adams appointed him envoy to France, but failing health required him to decline this office too. He died on the sixth of June, 1799 at the age of sixty-two.