Patrick Henry – Famous Speeches – “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!”

This is a reading of the speech give by Patrick Henry to Virginia House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775, three weeks before the battles of Lexington and Concord.

From the website Colonial Williamsburg:

To avoid interference from Governor Dunmore, the Second Virginia Convention met March 20, 1775 inland at Richmond — in what is now called St. John’s Church — instead of the Capitol in Williamsburg. Delegate Patrick Henry presented resolutions to raise and establish a militia, and to put Virginia in a posture of defense. Henry’s opponents urged caution and patience until the crown replied to Congress’ latest petition for reconciliation.

On the 23rd, Henry presented a proposal to organize a volunteer company of cavalry or infantry in every Virginia county. By custom, Henry addressed himself to the Convention’s president, Peyton Randolph of Williamsburg. Henry’s words were not transcribed, but no one who heard them forgot their eloquence, or Henry’s closing words.

Henry’s first biographer, William Wirt of Maryland, was three years old in 1775. An assistant federal prosecutor in Aaron Burr’s trial for treason at Richmond in 1807, and later attorney general of the United States, Wirt began to collect materials for the biography in 1808, nine years after Henry’s death. From the recollections of men like Thomas Jefferson, Wirt reconstructed an account of Henry’s life, including the remarks presented below.