Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry was born May 29, 1736 and died June 6, 179, he was an orator and politician who hes best known for his "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech. He is remembered as one of the most influential exponents of Republicanism. Henry was a leader of the anti-federalists in Virginia who opposed the United States Constitution. Patrick Henry proclaimed that a king who would veto a good and necessary law made by a locally elected representative body was not a father to his people but "a tyrant who forfeits the allegiance of his subjects." Henry served in the Virginia House of Burgesses; he was a member of the Virginia committee of Correspondence, a delegate to the Virginia Convention, and a delegate to the Virginia Constitution Ratification Convention. In 1774 and 1775 he was a delegate to the Continental Congress and served on three of its most important committees: the one colonial trade and manufactures, the one for drawing up an address to the king, and the one for stating the rights of the colonies. As governor he gave Washington able support and sent out the expedition under George Rogers Clark into the Illinois country. In 1778 he was chosen a delegate to Congress. From 1780 to 1784 and from 1787 to 1790 he was again a member of his State legislature; and from 1784 to 1786 was again governor. When he was chosen as a delegate to the Philadelphia constitutional convention of 1787, he had become cold in the cause and declined to serve. Henry also declined nominations from George Washington to become his secretary of state or the chief justice of the Supreme Court. He later served briefly as a U.S. senator and for many years as a Virginia state legislator. By the late 1790s Henry was a supporter of the Federalist policies of Washington and his successor, John Adams. He died age 64.