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Patrick Henry & The American Revolution

Patrick Henry began his life on May 29th 1736 . It would be a life whose importance cannot be underestimated . His accomplishments during the American Revolution are not as well a known as that of Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Franklin or George Washington . However , at a time when only 1 /3 of the American people agreed with the idea of going to war with the British , anyone who could help turn public sentiment towards the cause of freedom and liberty , need to be regarded as important in American history . Patrick Henry was that individual . Had

Patrick Henry not been born during that time in American history , his name would not have gone down as one of the most important men in American history . Henry needed an outlet for his self confidence to shine . The American Revolution gave him that avenue in which to show the country his greatness

Henry trained as an attorney and was noted for his talents at oration in which most of his pleas were filled with the passion that Henry felt for the subject . In one of the earliest examples , Henry railed against the British government in reaction to the 1763 tax levied upon tobacco and if its rate should be applied by the Royal Crown or the colonial government . Henry lost the case but his gift at oration was soon noted by the Virginia Assembly and was chiefly the reason why he was elected to the House of Burgesses for the state . He was elected to that governing body in 1765 , the same year that the Stamp Act , another thorn in the side of the British government by the ways in which the American colonies stiffly resisted such a tax levied upon them , was applied to the American colonies . In Henry 's reaction to the Stamp Act , as it was in opposition to the King , calls of treason were levied upon Henry Henry was not phased by the charge . Caesar had his Brutus Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third has me . George the Third may profit by their examples . If this be treason , make the most of it ' It would be the fearless actions in the face of what had to be seen as overwhelming odds , which captured the hearts and minds of people all across the colonies and which incites people even to this day to study the man and to try to capture that same degree of passion within their own lives

It would be this fiery oration which would forever cement his role in American colonial history . Henry 's Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death speech was given in the House of Burgesses on March 23 , 1775 . The House like most of the country , was undecided as to whether or not they were going to send troops . The consensus before the Henry speech it was believed , was that troops were not going to be sent and that submission to the British crown and their crippling application of taxes , would continue...

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