At a time of great political upheaval, President George Washington wrote to Patrick Henry in January 1799. Both men feared a civil war. In his letter, Washington asked his longtime ally to come forward for election to the Virginia House of Delegates as “a rallying cry for the timid and an attraction for the wavering.” Unable to refuse his former commander-in-chief, Henry announced his candidacy for the Virginia Legislature. Although unopposed and much weakened by the illness that would take his life three months later, Henry traveled to the county seat, formerly Marysville and now Charlotte Court House, to speak on court day. This would prove to be his last public address.
In his 1817 biography of Patrick Henry, William Wirt provided an account of Henry’s speech given to him by an unknown eyewitness. Wirt appended to this section: “This was the substance of the speech written down at the time by one of his hearers. ‘There was,’ says the writer, ‘an emphasis in his language to which, like the force of his articulation and the commanding expression of his eye, no representation can do justice; yet I am conscious of having given a correct transcript of his opinions, and, in many instances, his very expression.’”
March 4, 1799
He told them that the late proceedings of the Virginian assembly had filled him with apprehensions and alarm; that they had planted thorns upon his pillow; that they had drawn him from that happy retirement which it had pleased a bountiful Providence to bestow, and in which he had hoped to pass, in quiet, the remainder of his days; that the state had quitted the sphere in which she had been placed by the constitution; and in daring to pronounce Upon the validity of federal laws, had gone out of her jurisdiction, in a manner not warranted by any authority, and in the highest degree alarming to every considerate man; that such opposition on the part of Virginia, to the acts of the general government, must beget their enforcement by military power; that this would probably produce civil war; civil war, foreign alliances; and that foreign alliances, must necessarily end in subjugation to the powers called in.
He conjured the people to pause and consider well, before they rushed into such a desperate condition, from which there could be no retreat. He painted to their imaginations, Washington, at the head of a numerous and well appointed army, inflicting upon them military execution: “and where (he asked) are our resources to meet such a conflict?—Where is the citizen of America who will dare to lift his hand against the father of his country?” A drunken man in the crowd, threw up his arm, and exclaimed that “he dared to do it.”—”No,” answered Mr. Henry, rising aloft in all his majesty; “you dare not do it: in such a “parricidal attempt, the steel would drop from your nerveless arm!” The look and gesture at this moment, (says a correspondent,) gave to these words an energy on my mind, unequalled by any thing that I have ever witnessed.”
Mr. Henry, proceeding in his address to the people, asked, “whether the county of Charlotte would have any authority to dispute an obedience to the laws of Virginia; and he pronounced Virginia to be to the union, what the county of Charlotte was to her. Having denied the right of a state to what is to decide upon the constitutionality of federal laws, he added, that perhaps it might be necessary to say something of the merits of the laws in question. His private opinion was, that they were “good and proper.” But, whatever might be their merits, it belonged to the people, who held the reins over the head of congress, and to them alone, to say whether they were acceptable or otherwise, to Virginians; and that this must be done by way of petition. That congress were as much our representatives as the assembly, and had as good a right to our confidence. He had seen with regret, the unlimited power over the purse and sword, consigned to the general government; but that he had been overruled, and it was now necessary to submit to the constitutional exercise of that power.
“If,” said he, “I am asked what is to be done, when a people feel themselves intolerably oppressed, my answer is ready:—Overturn the government. But do not, I beseech you, carry matters to this length, without provocation. Wait at least until some infringement is made upon your rights, and which cannot otherwise be redressed; for if ever you recur to another change, you may bid adieu for ever to representative government. You can never exchange the present government, but for a monarchy. If the administration have done wrong, let us all go wrong together, rather than split into factions, which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs. Let us preserve our strength for the French, the English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare to invade our territory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and intestine wars.” He concluded, by declaring his design to exert himself in the endeavour to allay the heart-burnings and jealousies which had been fomented in the state legislature; and he fervently prayed, if he was deemed unworthy to effect it, that it might be reserved to some other and abler hand, to extend this blessing over the community.