Patrick Henry Part 7

Having thus got through with the mere routine of organization, which must have taken a considerable time, James Duane, of New York, moved the appointment of a committee "to prepare regulations for this Congress." To this several gentlemen objected; whereupon John Adams, thinking that Duane's purpose might have been misunderstood, "asked leave of the president to request of the gentleman from New York an explanation, and that he would point out some particular regulations which he had in his mind." In reply to this request, Duane "mentioned particularly the method of voting, whether it should be by colonies, or by the poll, or by interests."[107] Thus Duane laid his finger on perhaps the most sensitive nerve in that a.s.semblage; but as he sat down, the discussion of the subject which he had mentioned was interrupted by a rather curious incident. This was the return of the doorkeeper, having under his escort Mr. Charles Thomson. The latter walked up the aisle, and standing opposite to the president, said, with a bow, that he awaited his pleasure. The president replied: "Congress desire the favor of you, sir, to take their minutes."

Without a word, only bowing his acquiescence, the secretary took his seat at his desk, and began those modest but invaluable services from which he did not cease until the Congress of the Confederation was merged into that of the Union.

The discussion, into which this incident had fallen as a momentary episode, was then resumed. "After a short silence," says the man who was thus inducted into office, "Patrick Henry arose to speak. I did not then know him. He was dressed in a suit of parson's gray, and from his appearance I took him for a Presbyterian clergyman, used to haranguing the people. He observed that we were here met in a time and on an occasion of great difficulty and distress; that our public circ.u.mstances were like those of a man in deep embarra.s.sment and trouble, who had called his friends together to devise what was best to be done for his relief;--one would propose one thing, and another a different one, whilst perhaps a third would think of something better suited to his unhappy circ.u.mstances, which he would embrace, and think no more of the rejected schemes with which he would have nothing to do."[108]

Such is the rather meagre account, as given by one ear-witness, of Patrick Henry's first speech in the Congress of 1774. From another ear-witness we have another account, likewise very meagre, but giving, probably, a somewhat more adequate idea of the drift and point of what he said:--

"Mr. Henry then arose, and said this was the first general congress which had ever happened; that no former congress could be a precedent; that we should have occasion for more general congresses, and therefore that a precedent ought to be established now; that it would be a great injustice if a little colony should have the same weight in the councils of America as a great one; and therefore he was for a committee."[109]

The notable thing about both these accounts is that they agree in showing Patrick Henry's first speech in Congress to have been not, as has been represented, an impa.s.sioned portrayal of "general grievances," but a plain and quiet handling of a mere "detail of business." In the discussion he was followed by John Sullivan, who merely observed that "a little colony had its all at stake as well as a great one." The floor was then taken by John Adams, who seems to have made a searching and vigorous argument,--exhibiting the great difficulties attending any possible conclusion to which they might come respecting the method of voting. At the end of his speech, apparently, the House adjourned, to resume the consideration of the subject on the following day.[110]

Accordingly, on Tuesday morning the discussion was continued, and at far greater length than on the previous day; the first speaker being Patrick Henry himself, who seems now to have gone into the subject far more broadly, and with much greater intensity of thought, than in his first speech.

"'Government,' said he, 'is dissolved. Fleets and armies and the present state of things show that government is dissolved. Where are your landmarks, your boundaries of colonies? We are in a state of nature, sir. I did propose that a scale should be laid down; that part of North America which was once Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and that part which was once Virginia, ought to be considered as having a weight.

Will not people complain,--"Ten thousand Virginians have not outweighed one thousand others?"

"'I will submit, however; I am determined to submit, if I am overruled.

"'A worthy gentleman near me [John Adams] seemed to admit the necessity of obtaining a more adequate representation.

"'I hope future ages will quote our proceedings with applause. It is one of the great duties of the democratical part of the const.i.tution to keep itself pure. It is known in my province that some other colonies are not so numerous or rich as they are. I am for giving all the satisfaction in my power.

"'The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.

"'Slaves are to be thrown out of the question; and if the freemen can be represented according to their numbers, I am satisfied.'

"The subject was then debated at length by Lynch, Rutledge, Ward, Richard Henry Lee, Gadsden, Bland, and Pendleton, when Patrick Henry again rose:--

"'I agree that authentic accounts cannot be had, if by authenticity is meant attestations of officers of the crown.

I go upon the supposition that government is at an end. All distinctions are thrown down. All America is thrown into one ma.s.s. We must aim at the minutiae of rect.i.tude.'"

Patrick Henry was then followed by John Jay, who seems to have closed the debate, and whose allusion to what his immediate predecessor had said gives us some hint of the variations in Revolutionary opinion then prevailing among the members, as well as of the advanced position always taken by Patrick Henry:--

"'Could I suppose that we came to frame an American const.i.tution, instead of endeavoring to correct the faults in an old one, I can't yet think that all government is at an end. The measure of arbitrary power is not full; and I think it must run over, before we undertake to frame a new const.i.tution. To the virtue, spirit, and abilities of Virginia we owe much. I should always, therefore, from inclination as well as justice, be for giving Virginia its full weight. I am not clear that we ought not to be bound by a majority, though ever so small; but I only mentioned it as a matter of danger worthy of consideration.'"[111]

Of this entire debate, the most significant issue is indicated by the following pa.s.sage from the journal for Tuesday, the 6th of September:--

"_Resolved_, that in determining questions in this Congress, each colony or province shall have one vote; the Congress not being possessed of, or at present able to procure, proper materials for ascertaining the importance of each colony."[112]

So far as it is now possible to ascertain it, such was Patrick Henry's part in the first discussion held by the first Continental Congress,--a discussion occupying parts of two days, and relating purely to methods of procedure by that body, and not to the matters of grievance between the colonies and Great Britain. We have a right to infer something as to the quality of the first impression made upon his a.s.sociates by Patrick Henry in consequence of his three speeches in this discussion, from the fact that when, at the close of it, an order was taken for the appointment of two grand committees, one "to state the rights of the colonies," the other "to examine and report the several statutes which affect the trade and manufactures of the colonies," Patrick Henry was chosen to represent Virginia on the latter committee,[113]--a position not likely to have been selected for a man who, however eloquent he may have seemed, had not also shown business-like and lawyer-like qualities.

The Congress kept steadily at work from Monday, the 5th of September, to Wednesday, the 26th of October,--just seven weeks and two days.

Though not a legislative body, it resembled all legislative bodies then in existence, in the fact that it sat with closed doors, and that it gave to the public only such results as it chose to give. Upon the difficult and exciting subjects which came before it, there were, very likely, many splendid pa.s.sages of debate; and we cannot doubt that in all these discussions Patrick Henry took his usually conspicuous and powerful share. Yet no official record was kept of what was said by any member; and it is only from the hurried private memoranda of two of his colleagues that we are able to learn anything more respecting Patrick Henry's partic.i.p.ation in the debates of those seven weeks.

For example, just two weeks after the opening of this Congress, one of its most critical members, Silas Deane of Connecticut, in a letter to his wife, gave some capital sketches of his more prominent a.s.sociates there, especially those from the South,--as Randolph, Harrison, Washington, Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry. The latter he describes as "a lawyer, and the completest speaker I ever heard. If his future speeches are equal to the small samples he has. .h.i.therto given us, they will be worth preserving; but in a letter I can give you no idea of the music of his voice, or the high-wrought yet natural elegance of his style and manner."[114]

It was on the 28th of September that Joseph Galloway brought forward his celebrated plan for a permanent reconciliation between Great Britain and her colonies. This was simply a scheme for what we should now call home rule, on a basis of colonial confederation, with an American parliament to be elected every three years by the legislatures of the several colonies, and with a governor-general to be appointed by the crown. The plan came very near to adoption.[115]

The member who introduced it was a man of great ability and great influence; it was supported by James Duane and John Jay; it was p.r.o.nounced by Edward Rutledge to be "almost a perfect plan;" and in the final trial it was lost only by a vote of six colonies to five.

Could it have been adopted, the disruption of the British empire would certainly have been averted for that epoch, and, as an act of violence and of unkindness, would perhaps have been averted forever; while the thirteen English colonies would have remained English colonies, without ceasing to be free.

The plan, however, was distrusted and resisted, with stern and implacable hostility, by the more radical members of the Congress, particularly by those from Ma.s.sachusetts and Virginia; and an outline of what Patrick Henry said in his a.s.sault upon it, delivered on the very day on which it was introduced, is thus given by John Adams:--

"The original const.i.tution of the colonies was founded on the broadest and most generous base. The regulation of our trade was compensation enough for all the protection we ever experienced from her.

"We shall liberate our const.i.tuents from a corrupt House of Commons, but throw them into the arms of an American legislature, that may be bribed by that nation which avows, in the face of the world, that bribery is a part of her system of government.

"Before we are obliged to pay taxes as they do, let us be as free as they; let us have our trade open with all the world.

"We are not to consent by the representatives of representatives.

"I am inclined to think the present measures lead to war."[116]

The only other trace to be discovered of Patrick Henry's activity in the debates of this Congress belongs to the day just before the one on which Galloway's plan was introduced. The subject then under discussion was the measure for non-importation and non-exportation. On considerations of forbearance, Henry tried to have the date for the application of this measure postponed from November to December, saying, characteristically, "We don't mean to hurt even our rascals, if we have any."[117]

Probably the most notable work done by this Congress was its preparation of those masterly state papers in which it interpreted and affirmed the const.i.tutional att.i.tude of the colonies, and which, when laid upon the table of the House of Lords, drew forth the splendid encomium of Chatham.[118] In many respects the most important, and certainly the most difficult, of these state papers, was the address to the king. The motion for such an address was made on the 1st of October. On the same day the preparation of it was entrusted to a very able committee, consisting of Richard Henry Lee, John Adams, Thomas Johnson, Patrick Henry, and John Rutledge; and on the 21st of October the committee was strengthened by the accession of John d.i.c.kinson, who had entered the Congress but four days before.[119] Precisely what part Patrick Henry took in the preparation of this address is not now known; but there is no evidence whatever for the a.s.sertion[120] that the first draft, which, when submitted to Congress, proved to be unsatisfactory, was the work of Patrick Henry. That draft, as is now abundantly proved, was prepared by the chairman of the committee, Richard Henry Lee, but after full instructions from Congress and from the committee itself.[121] In its final form, the address was largely moulded by the expert and gentle hand of John d.i.c.kinson.[122] No one can doubt, however, that even though Patrick Henry may have contributed nothing to the literary execution of this fine address, he was not inactive in its construction,[123] and that he was not likely to have suggested any abatement from its free and manly spirit.

The only other committee on which he is known to have served during this Congress was one to which his name was added on the 19th of September,--"the committee appointed to state the rights of the colonies,"[124] an object, certainly, far better suited to the peculiarities of his talents and of his temper than that of the committee for the conciliation of a king.

Of course, the one gift in which Patrick Henry excelled all other men of his time and neighborhood was the gift of eloquence; and it is not to be doubted that in many other forms of effort, involving, for example, plain sense, practical experience, and knowledge of details, he was often equaled, and perhaps even surpa.s.sed, by men who had not a particle of his genius for oratory. This fact, the a.n.a.logue of which is common in the history of all men of genius, seems to be the basis of an anecdote which, possibly, is authentic, and which, at any rate, has been handed down by one who was always a devoted friend[125] of the great orator. It is said that, after Henry and Lee had made their first speeches, Samuel Chase of Maryland was so impressed by their superiority that he walked over to the seat of one of his colleagues and said: "We might as well go home; we are not able to legislate with these men." But some days afterward, perhaps in the midst of the work of the committee on the statutes affecting trade and commerce, the same member was able to relieve himself by the remark: "Well, after all, I find these are but men, and, in mere matters of business, but very common men."[126]

It seems hardly right to pa.s.s from these studies upon the first Continental Congress, and upon Patrick Henry's part in it, without some reference to Wirt's treatment of the subject in a book which has now been, for nearly three quarters of a century, the chief source of public information concerning Patrick Henry. There is perhaps no other portion of this book which is less worthy of respect.[127] It is not only unhistoric in nearly all the very few alleged facts of the narrative, but it does great injustice to Patrick Henry by representing him virtually as a mere declaimer, as an ill-instructed though most impressive rhapsodist in debate, and as without any claim to the character of a serious statesman, or even of a man of affairs; while, by the somewhat grandiose and melodramatic tone of some portion of the narrative, it is singularly out of harmony with the real tone of that famous a.s.semblage,--an a.s.semblage of Anglo-Saxon lawyers, politicians, and men of business, who were probably about as practical and sober-minded a company as had been got together for any manly undertaking since that of Runnymede.

Wirt begins by convening his Congress one day too soon, namely, on the 4th of September, which was Sunday; and he represents the members as "personally strangers" to one another, and as sitting, after their preliminary organization, in a "long and deep silence," the members meanwhile looking around upon each other with a sort of helpless anxiety, "every individual" being reluctant "to open a business so fearfully momentous." But

"in the midst of this deep and death-like silence, and just when it was beginning to become painfully embarra.s.sing, Mr.

Henry arose slowly, as if borne down by the weight of the subject. After faltering, according to his habit, through a most impressive exordium, in which he merely echoed back the consciousness of every other heart in deploring his inability to do justice to the occasion, he launched gradually into a recital of the colonial wrongs. Rising, as he advanced, with the grandeur of his subject, and glowing at length with all the majesty and expectation of the occasion, his speech seemed more than that of mortal man.

Even those who had heard him in all his glory in the House of Burgesses of Virginia were astonished at the manner in which his talents seemed to swell and expand themselves to fill the vaster theatre in which he was now placed. There was no rant, no rhapsody, no labor of the understanding, no straining of the voice, no confusion of the utterance. His countenance was erect, his eye steady, his action n.o.ble, his enunciation clear and firm, his mind poised on its centre, his views of his subject comprehensive and great, and his imagination coruscating with a magnificence and a variety which struck even that a.s.sembly with amazement and awe. He sat down amidst murmurs of astonishment and applause; and, as he had been before proclaimed the greatest orator of Virginia, he was now on every hand admitted to be the first orator of America."[128]

This great speech from Patrick Henry, which certainly was not made on that occasion, and probably was never made at all, Wirt causes to be followed by a great speech from Richard Henry Lee, although the journal could have informed him that Lee was not even in the House on that day. Moreover, he makes Patrick Henry to be the author of the unfortunate first draft of the address to the king,--a doc.u.ment which was written by another man; and on this fiction he founds two or three pages of lamentation and of homily with reference to Patrick Henry's inability to express himself in writing, in consequence of "his early neglect of literature." Finally, he thinks it due "to historic truth to record that the superior powers" of Patrick Henry "were manifested only in debate;" and that, although he and Richard Henry Lee "took the undisputed lead in the a.s.sembly," "during the first days of the session, while general grievances were the topic," yet they were both "completely thrown into the shade" "when called down from the heights of declamation to that severer test of intellectual excellence, the details of business,"--the writer here seeming to forget that "general grievances" were not the topic "during the first days of the session,"

and that the very speeches by which these two men are said to have made their mark there, were speeches on mere rules of the House relating to methods of procedure.[129]

Since the death of Wirt, and the publication of the biography of him by Kennedy, it has been possible for us to ascertain just how the genial author of "The Life and Character of Patrick Henry" came to be so gravely misled in this part of his book. "The whole pa.s.sage relative to the first Congress" appears to have been composed from data furnished by Jefferson, who, however, was not a member of that Congress; and in the original ma.n.u.script the very words of Jefferson were surrounded with quotation marks, and were attributed to him by name. When, however, that great man, who loved not to send out calumnies into the world with his own name attached to them, came to inspect this portion of Wirt's ma.n.u.script, he was moved by his usual prudence to write such a letter as drew from Wirt the following consolatory a.s.surance:--

"Your repose shall never be endangered by any act of mine, if I can help it. Immediately on the receipt of your last letter, and before the ma.n.u.script had met any other eye, I wrote over again the whole pa.s.sage relative to the first Congress, omitting the marks of quotation, and removing your name altogether from the communication."[130]

The final adjournment of the first Continental Congress, it will be remembered, did not occur until its members had spent together more than seven weeks of the closest intellectual intimacy. Surely, no mere declaimer however enchanting, no sublime babbler on the rights of man, no political charlatan strutting about for the display of his preternatural gift of articulate wind, could have grappled in keen debate, for all those weeks, on the greatest of earthly subjects, with fifty of the ablest men in America, without exposing to their view all his own intellectual poverty, and without losing the very last shred of their intellectual respect for him. Whatever may have been the impression formed of Patrick Henry as a mere orator by his a.s.sociates in that Congress, nothing can be plainer than that those men carried with them to their homes that report of him as a man of extraordinary intelligence, integrity, and power, which was the basis of his subsequent fame for many years among the American people. Long afterward, John Adams, who formed his estimate of Patrick Henry chiefly from what he saw of him in that Congress, and who was never much addicted to bestowing eulogiums on any man but John Adams, wrote to Jefferson that "in the Congress of 1774 there was not one member, except Patrick Henry, who appeared ... sensible of the precipice, or rather the pinnacle, on which we stood, and had candor and courage enough to acknowledge it."[131] To Wirt likewise, a few years later, the same hard critic of men testified that Patrick Henry always impressed him as a person "of deep reflection, keen sagacity, clear foresight, daring enterprise, inflexible intrepidity, and untainted integrity, with an ardent zeal for the liberties, the honor, and felicity of his country and his species."[132]

Of the parting interview between these two men, at the close of that first period of thorough personal acquaintance, there remains from the hand of one of them a graphic account that reveals to us something of the conscious kinship which seems ever afterward to have bound together their robust and impetuous natures.

"When Congress," says John Adams, "had finished their business, as they thought, in the autumn of 1774, I had with Mr. Henry, before we took leave of each other, some familiar conversation, in which I expressed a full conviction that our resolves, declarations of rights, enumeration of wrongs, pet.i.tions, remonstrances, and addresses, a.s.sociations, and non-importation agreements, however they might be expected by the people in America, and however necessary to cement the union of the colonies, would be but waste paper in England. Mr. Henry said they might make some impression among the people of England, but agreed with me that they would be totally lost upon the government. I had but just received a short and hasty letter, written to me by Major Hawley, of Northampton, containing 'a few broken hints,' as he called them, of what he thought was proper to be done, and concluding[133] with these words: 'After all, we must fight.' This letter I read to Mr. Henry, who listened with great attention; and as soon as I had p.r.o.nounced the words, 'After all, we must fight,' he raised his head, and with an energy and vehemence that I can never forget, broke out with: 'By G.o.d, I am of that man's mind!'"[134]

This anecdote, it may be mentioned, contains the only instance on record, for any period of Patrick Henry's life, implying his use of what at first may seem a profane oath. John Adams, upon whose very fallible memory in old age the story rests, declares that he did not at the time regard Patrick Henry's words as an oath, but rather as a solemn a.s.severation, affirmed religiously, upon a very great occasion.

At any rate, that a.s.severation proved to be a prophecy; for from it there then leaped a flame that lighted up for an instant the next inevitable stage in the evolution of events,--the tragic and b.l.o.o.d.y outcome of all these wary lucubrations and devices of the a.s.sembled political wizards of America.

It is interesting to note that, at the very time when the Congress at Philadelphia was busy with its stern work, the people of Virginia were grappling with the peril of an Indian war a.s.sailing them from beyond their western mountains. There has recently been brought to light a letter written at Hanover, on the 15th of October, 1774, by the aged mother of Patrick Henry, to a friend living far out towards the exposed district; and this letter is a touching memorial both of the general anxiety over the two concurrent events, and of the motherly pride and piety of the writer:--

"My son Patrick has been gone to Philadelphia near seven weeks. The affairs of Congress are kept with great secrecy, n.o.body being allowed to be present. I a.s.sure you we have our lowland troubles and fears with respect to Great Britain.

Perhaps our good G.o.d may bring good to us out of these many evils which threaten us, not only from the mountains but from the seas."[135]