Patrick Henry demanded liberty, or death
On this day · 23 March 1775
At a tense Virginia convention in 1775, one lawyer reframed a militia vote as a choice between freedom and the grave.
On March 23, 1775, delegates packed a Richmond church for the Second Virginia Convention. The colonies were drifting toward war, and Patrick Henry rose to argue for a resolution arming Virginia’s militia. Moderates wanted to wait and petition Britain further. Henry insisted the time for half-measures had passed.
The address survives only through William Wirt’s 1817 biography, reconstructed decades later from listeners’ memories, so the exact wording is uncertain. Yet its closing line became revolutionary scripture.
“Give me liberty, or give me death!”
In the audience sat future giants including George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Jefferson. Henry’s resolution narrowly passed, committing the colony to prepare for armed resistance weeks before fighting erupted at Lexington and Concord. For a speech nobody transcribed at the time, it proved remarkably durable, supplying a slogan that still anchors American arguments about freedom two and a half centuries on.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
