Chapter II: Preface: To Revised Edition

I have gladly used the opportunity afforded by a new edition of this book to give the text a minute revision from beginning to end, and to make numerous changes both in its substance and in its form.

During the eleven years that have passed since it first came from the press, considerable additions have been made to our documentary materials for the period covered by it, the most important for our purpose being the publication, for the first time, of the correspondence and the speeches of Patrick Henry and of George Mason, the former with a life, in three volumes, by William Wirt Henry, the latter also with a life, in two volumes, by Kate Mason Rowland. Besides procuring for my own pages whatever benefit I could draw from these texts, I have tried, while turning over very frequently the writings of Patrick Henry's contemporaries, to be always on the watch for the means of correcting any mistakes I may have made concerning him, whether as to fact or as to opinion.

In this work of rectification I have likewise been aided by suggestions from many persons, of whom I would particularly mention the Right Rev. Joseph Blount Cheshire, Jr., D. D., Bishop of North Carolina, and Mr. William Wirt Henry.

M. C. T.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY, 31 March, 1898

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. EARLY YEARS 1
II. WAS HE ILLITERATE? 10
III. BECOMES A LAWYER 22
IV. A CELEBRATED CASE 36
V. FIRST TRIUMPHS AT THE CAPITAL 56
VI. CONSEQUENCES 77
VII. STEADY WORK 90
VIII. IN THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 101
IX. "AFTER ALL, WE MUST FIGHT" 128
X. THE RAPE OF THE GUNPOWDER 153
XI. IN CONGRESS AND IN CAMP 168
XII. INDEPENDENCE 189
XIII. FIRST GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF VIRGINIA 214
XIV. GOVERNOR A SECOND TIME 240
XV. THIRD YEAR IN THE GOVERNORSHIP 257
XVI. AT HOME AND IN THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES 271
XVII. SHALL THE CONFEDERATION BE MADE STRONGER? 298
XVIII. THE BATTLE IN VIRGINIA OVER THE NEW CONSTITUTION 313
XIX. THE AFTER-FIGHT FOR AMENDMENTS 339
XX. LAST LABORS AT THE BAR 357
XXI. IN RETIREMENT 382
XXII. LAST DAYS 407
LIST OF PRINTED DOCUMENTS CITED IN THIS BOOK 424
INDEX 431

PATRICK HENRY