"Give me liberty..." this Sunday!
The 250th of Independence kicks off with Patrick Henry this Sunday
We are now into entering full-steam into the 250th anniversary of American Independence. Next month will commemorate the opening shots of the Revolutionary War, at Lexington and Concord, on April 18 and 19. This weekend, however, marks the semiquincentennial of one of the most famous, and inflammatory, speeches in American history, Patrick Henry’s immortal call for freedom. On Sunday, a re-enactment of Henry’s speech will take place in Richmond, Virginia, and viewers around the nation can watch (details below).
The background to the speech used to be well-known. Patrick Henry had been a delegate to the First Continental Congress, in 1774, the same year that Virginia’s authoritarian colonial governor, Lord Dunmore, had dissolved the colony’s House of Burgesses. The burgesses reconstituted themselves as the Virginia Convention, and over the next years, consistently pushed for the colony’s independence from Great Britain. By the Spring of 1775, with Governor Dunmore attempting to prevent the Virginia militia from securing supplies, Henry had come to believe that conflict with London was unavoidable.
(Image from the Library of Congress)
On March 23, 1775, in St. John’s Church, in Richmond, Virginia, the fiery Henry urged the Second Virginia Convention to arm the militia in defiance of the governor. In spurring on his fellow Virginians, he famously declaimed that
“The war is inevitable and let it come! Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace…as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”[1]
Henry’s passionate appeal stirred the imaginations of Virginians and other colonials, throwing sparks on the tinder of colonial opposition to King George III and Parliament similar to those long scattered by the firebrand Samuel Adams, in Massachusetts. Within a month, the war had broken out up north, and the eight-year struggle for Independence was launched.
This Sunday marks the 250th anniversary of Henry’s speech and the birth pangs of the United States. To honor this historical event, and to kick off 250th commemorations, the VA250 Commission is organizing a live reenactment of the speech, held in the very spot in which it was first delivered. The reenactment will take place at 1:30 PM ET, at St. John’s Church. For those not able to make it down to Richmond, VA250 is livestreaming the speech. Full details on how to watch are available here. Kudos to VA250 for allowing us all to join in the festivities and starting us off right on our national Semiquincentennial celebrations.
[1] Henry’s speech can be found at https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/deep-dives/give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death/ (accessed 11/25/24).