time visited every year, as a patriotic
shrine, by thousands of pilgrims, who seek curiously the very spot
upon the floor where the orator is believed to have stood when he
uttered those words of flame. It is chiefly the tradition of that one
speech which to-day keeps alive, in millions of American homes, the
name of Patrick Henry, and which lifts him, in the popular faith,
almost to the rank of some mythical hero of romance.

In reality, that speech, and the resolutions in support of which that
speech was made, constituted Patrick Henry's individual declaration of
war against Great Britain. But the question is: To what extent, if
any, was he therein original, or even in advance of his
fellow-countrymen, and particularly of his associates in the Virginia
convention?

It is essential to a just understanding of the history of that crisis
in revolutionary thought, and it is of very high importance, likewise,
to the historic position of Patrick Henry, that no mistake be
committed here; especially that he be not made the victim of a
disastrous reaction from any overstatement[136] respecting the precise
nature and extent of the service then rendered by him to the cause of
the Revolution.

We need, therefore, to glance for a moment at the period between
October, 1774, and March, 1775, with the purpose of tracing therein
the more important tokens of the growth of the popular conviction that
a war with Great Britain had become inevitable, and was to be
immediately prepared for by the several colonies,--two propositions
which form the substance of all that Patrick Henry said on the great
occasion now before us.

As early as the 21st of October, 1774, the first Continental
Congress, after having suggested all possible methods for averting
war, made this solemn declaration to the people of the colonies: "We
think ourselves bound in duty to observe to you that the schemes
agitated against these colonies have been so conducted as to render it
prudent that you should extend your views to mournful events, and be
in all respects prepared for every emergency."[137] Just six days
later, John Dickinson, a most conservative and peace-loving member of
that Congress, wrote to an American friend in England: "I wish for
peace ardently; but must say, delightful as it is, it will come more
grateful by being unexpected. The first act of violence on the part of
administration in America, or the attempt to reinforce General Gage
this winter o