Patrick Henry Part 29

One of those students, John Miller, of South Carolina, according to an account said to have been given by him in conversation forty years afterward, having with his companions reached the town,--

"and having learned that the great orator would speak in the porch of a tavern fronting the large court-green, ... pushed his way through the gathering crowd, and secured the pedestal of a pillar, where he stood within eight feet of him. He was very infirm, and seated in a chair conversing with some old friends, waiting for the a.s.sembling of the immense mult.i.tudes who were pouring in from all the surrounding country to hear him. At length he arose with difficulty, and stood somewhat bowed with age and weakness.

His face was almost colorless. His countenance was careworn; and when he commenced his exordium, his voice was slightly cracked and tremulous. But in a few moments a wonderful transformation of the whole man occurred, as he warmed with his theme. He stood erect; his eye beamed with a light that was almost supernatural; his features glowed with the hue and fire of youth; and his voice rang clear and melodious with the intonations of some grand musical instrument whose notes filled the area, and fell distinctly and delightfully upon the ears of the most distant of the thousands gathered before him."[470]

As regards the substance of the speech then made, it will not be safe for us to confide very much in the supposed recollections of old men who heard it when they were young. Upon the whole, probably, the most trustworthy outline of it now to be had is that of a gentleman who declares that he wrote down his recollections of the speech not long after its delivery. According to this account, Patrick Henry--

"told them that the late proceedings of the Virginian a.s.sembly 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 pa.s.s, in quiet, the remainder of his days; that the State had quitted the sphere in which she had been placed by the Const.i.tution, and, in daring to p.r.o.nounce 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!' ... 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 p.r.o.nounced Virginia to be to the Union what the county of Charlotte was to her. Having denied the right of a State to decide upon the const.i.tutionality of federal laws, he added, that perhaps it might be necessary to say something of the merits of the laws in question.[471] 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 pet.i.tion; that Congress were as much our representatives as the a.s.sembly, 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 ... he had been overruled, and it was now necessary to submit to the const.i.tutional 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 forever to representative government. You can never exchange the present government but for a monarchy.... 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 endeavor 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."[472]

The outline thus given may be inaccurate in several particulars: it is known to be so in one. Respecting the alien and sedition acts, the orator expressed no opinion at all;[473] but accepting them as the law of the land, he counselled moderation, forbearance, and the use of const.i.tutional means of redress. Than that whole effort, as has been said by a recent and a sagacious historian, "nothing in his life was n.o.bler."[474]

Upon the conclusion of the old man's speech the stand was taken by a very young man, John Randolph of Roanoke, who undertook to address the crowd, offering himself to them as a candidate for Congress, but on behalf of the party then opposed to Patrick Henry. By reason of weariness, no doubt, the latter did not remain upon the platform; but having "requested a friend to report to him anything which might require an answer," he stepped back into the tavern. "Randolph began by saying that he had admired that man more than any on whom the sun had shone, but that now he was constrained to differ from him '_toto coelo_.'" Whatever else Randolph may have said in his speech, whether important or otherwise, was spoken under the disadvantage of a cold and a hoa.r.s.eness so severe as to render him scarcely able to "utter an audible sentence." Furthermore, Patrick Henry "made no reply, nor did he again present himself to the people."[475] There is, however, a tradition, not improbable, that when Randolph had finished his speech, and had come back into the room where the aged statesman was resting, the latter, taking him gently by the hand, said to him, with great kindness: "Young man, you call me father. Then, my son, I have something to say unto thee: keep justice, keep truth,--and you will live to think differently."

As a result of the poll, Patrick Henry was, by a great majority, elected to the House of Delegates. But his political enemies, who, for sufficient reasons, greatly dreaded his appearance upon that scene of his ancient domination, were never any more to be embarra.s.sed by his presence there. For, truly, they who, on that March day, at Charlotte court-house, had heard Patrick Henry, "had heard an immortal orator who would never speak again."[476] He seems to have gone thence to his home, and never to have left it. About the middle of the next month, being too sick to write many words, he lifted himself up in bed long enough to tell the secretary of state that he could not go on the mission to France, and to send his dying blessing to his old friend, the President. Early in June, his eldest daughter, Martha Fontaine, living at a distance of two days' travel from Red Hill, received from him a letter beginning with these words: "Dear Patsy, I am very unwell, and have Dr. Cabell with me."[477] Upon this alarming news, she and others of his kindred in that neighborhood made all haste to go to him. On arriving at Red Hill "they found him sitting in a large, old-fashioned armchair, in which he was easier than upon a bed." The disease of which he was dying was intussusception. On the 6th of June, all other remedies having failed, Dr. Cabell proceeded to administer to him a dose of liquid mercury. Taking the vial in his hand, and looking at it for a moment, the dying man said: "I suppose, doctor, this is your last resort?" The doctor replied: "I am sorry to say, governor, that it is. Acute inflammation of the intestine has already taken place; and unless it is removed, mortification will ensue, if it has not already commenced, which I fear." "What will be the effect of this medicine?" said the old man. "It will give you immediate relief, or"--the kind-hearted doctor could not finish the sentence. His patient took up the word: "You mean, doctor, that it will give relief, or will prove fatal immediately?" The doctor answered: "You can only live a very short time without it, and it may possibly relieve you."

Then Patrick Henry said, "Excuse me, doctor, for a few minutes;" and drawing down over his eyes a silken cap which he usually wore, and still holding the vial in his hand, he prayed, in clear words, a simple childlike prayer, for his family, for his country, and for his own soul then in the presence of death. Afterward, in perfect calmness, he swallowed the medicine. Meanwhile, Dr. Cabell, who greatly loved him, went out upon the lawn, and in his grief threw himself down upon the earth under one of the trees, weeping bitterly.

Soon, when he had sufficiently mastered himself, the doctor came back to his patient, whom he found calmly watching the congealing of the blood under his finger-nails, and speaking words of love and peace to his family, who were weeping around his chair. Among other things, he told them that he was thankful for that goodness of G.o.d, which, having blessed him through all his life, was then permitting him to die without any pain. Finally, fixing his eyes with much tenderness on his dear friend, Dr. Cabell, with whom he had formerly held many arguments respecting the Christian religion, he asked the doctor to observe how great a reality and benefit that religion was to a man about to die.

And after Patrick Henry had spoken to his beloved physician these few words in praise of something which, having never failed him in all his life before, did not then fail him in his very last need of it, he continued to breathe very softly for some moments; after which they who were looking upon him saw that his life had departed.

FOOTNOTES:

[465] Henry Adams, _Life of J. Randolph,_ 27-28.

[466] _Writings of Washington_, xi. 557-559.

[467] _Works of John Adams_, ix. 162; viii. 641-642.

[468] _Writings of Washington_, xi. 387-391.

[469] Garland, _Life of John Randolph_, 130.

[470] Fontaine, MS.

[471] The alien and sedition acts.

[472] Wirt, 393-395.

[473] _Hist. Mag._ for 1873, 353.

[474] Henry Adams, _John Randolph_, 29.

[475] J. W. Alexander, _Life of A. Alexander_, 188-189. About this whole scene have gathered many myths, of which several first appeared in a Life of Henry, in the _New Edinb. Encycl._ 1817; were thence copied into Howe, _Hist. Coll. Va._ 224-225; and have thence been engulfed in that rich ma.s.s of unwhipped hyperboles and of unexploded fables still patriotically swallowed by the American public as American history.

[476] Henry Adams.

[477] Fontaine, MS.

LIST OF PRINTED DOc.u.mENTS

CITED IN THIS BOOK, WITH t.i.tLES, PLACES, AND DATES OF THE EDITIONS USED.

ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS. (See John Adams.)

ADAMS, HENRY, The Life of Albert Gallatin. Philadelphia: 1880.

ADAMS, HENRY, John Randolph. Am. Statesmen Series. Boston: 1882.

ADAMS, JOHN. (See Novanglus, etc.)

ADAMS, JOHN, Letters of, Addressed to his Wife. Ed. by Charles Francis Adams. 2 vols. Boston: 1841.

ADAMS, JOHN, The Works of. Ed. by Charles Francis Adams. 10 vols.

Boston: 1856.

ADAMS, SAMUEL, Life of. (See Wm. V. Wells.)

ALEXANDER, JAMES W., The Life of Archibald Alexander. New York: 1854.

American Archives. (Peter Force.) 9 vols. Washington: 1837-1853.

The American Quarterly Review. Vol. i. Philadelphia: 1827.

BANCROFT, GEORGE, History of the United States. 10 vols. Boston: 1870-1874.

BANCROFT, GEORGE, History of the United States. The Author's Last Revision. 6 vols. New York: 1883-1885.

BANCROFT, GEORGE, History of the Formation of the Const.i.tution of the United States of America. 2 vols. New York: 1882.

BLAND, RICHARD, A Letter to the Clergy of Virginia, n. p. 1760.

BROUGHAM, HENRY, LORD, The Life and Times of, Written by himself. 3 vols. New York: 1871.

BURK, JOHN (DALY), The History of Virginia. 4 vols. Petersburg: 1804-1816. Last volume by Skelton Jones and Louis Hue Girardin.

BYRD, WILLIAM, Byrd Ma.n.u.scripts. 2 vols. Richmond: 1866.

Calendar of Virginia State Papers. Vol. ii. Richmond: 1881.

CAMPBELL, CHARLES, The Bland Papers: Being a Selection from the Ma.n.u.scripts of Colonel Theodorick Bland, Jr. 2 vols. Petersburg: 1840.

CAMPBELL, CHARLES, History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia. Philadelphia: 1860.

Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society. Vol. ii.

Hartford: 1870.