On March 23, 1775, future U.S. presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were at a meeting of the Patriot legislature in a church in Richmond, Virginia. Attorney, politician, and orator Patrick Henry took the stage and gave an impassioned speech about how much the Brits sucked, shouting, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” So a Brit said “death” and shot him. I jest. His speech inflamed the crowd, leading to the American Revolution.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: March 23, 1775--
During his speech, Henry proclaimed war with Britain was inevitable, saying, “Gentlemen may cry, Peace! Peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! . . . Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?” He said that peace should not be purchased at the price of chains and slavery, which was hypocritical as fuck considering how many enslavers were in the room.
He closed with the liberty or death part, being all dramatic and shit by pretending to plunge a letter opener into his chest. The room was stunned to silence. But his speech moved them to vote for what he was calling for: passing a resolution to declare the colonies independent from Britain. Remember, this was more than a year away from the Declaration of Independence. It wasn’t yet a big public fuck you Britain, rather a quieter precursor to fuck you Britain.
Henry was named chair of a committee to raise a militia and begin preparations for war, even though he was a bit of a plagiarist. The 1713 play Cato, a Tragedy, written by Joseph Addison, has the line “chains or conquest, liberty or death.” The play was popular in the colonies and it is a near certainty Henry was familiar with it. Going back even further is the opera Artemisia, written by Nicolò Minato in 1657 that contains an aria called “Give me death or freedom.” The context is different in the opera, however, as it’s not about political freedom but freedom from love because some poor lass got her heart broken and she couldn’t bear it.
At any rate, Lord Dunmore, who was the British dude in charge of the Virginia colony, got wind of this treason and a month later said I’ll teach those militaristic mofos and took all the gunpowder from Williamsburg and put it on a Royal Navy ship. Patrick Henry led a militia to the city to get it back, and Dunmore said oh fuk they gon’ kill me, and he fled, ending British control of Virginia. After the Declaration of Independence the following year, Patrick Henry became the first governor of Virginia.
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