Patrick Henry (politician, 1736)

Patrick Henry painted by George Bagby Matthews

Patrick Henry (born May 29, 1736 in Hanover County , Colony of Virginia , † June 6, 1799 on the Red Hill Plantation near Brookneal , Virginia ) was a British-American lawyer and politician. He was also a prominent representative of the American independence movement .

family

Patrick Henry was born on May 29, 1736 on his parent's Studley estate , in Hanover County, Virginia. He was the son of John Henry, an immigrant from Aberdeenshire , Scotland , and his wife, Sarah Winston Syme, a wealthy widow of English descent. He attended school for a few years and was later taught by his father. In 1754 Patrick Henry married his first wife Sarah Shelton (around 1738-1775) in Rural Plains , the home of the Shelton family; they had six children together (Martha, John, William, Anne, Elizabeth and Edward). After Sarah's death, Henry married his second wife Dorothea Dandridge (1755-1831) in 1777, with whom he had eleven children (Dorothea, Sara, Martha Cathrina, Patrick, Fayette, Alexander Spotswood, Nathaniel West, Richard, Edward Winston, John and Jane Robertson).

Act

Peter Frederick Rothermel's painting Patrick Henry Before the Virginia House of Burgesses , painted in 1851, shows Patrick Henry giving his famous speech in 1775

Henry acted as a lawyer in 1763 in a tobacco tax lawsuit , the outcome of which was seen as encouragement for the independence movement. In 1765 he was elected to the House of Burgesses in Virginia. On March 23, 1775, he gave a speech to the Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond , the last sentence of which, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me Liberty, or give me Death! “Went down in US history. From 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786 he served as governor of Virginia .

Later he was an avowed opponent of the United States Constitution ; as a federalist, he was of the opinion that it gave the federal government too much power. In 1795 he declined the offer of George Washington off foreign ministers to be. However, with the increasing radicalism of the French Revolution in the late 1790s, he feared that the United States would face a similar fate and changed his mind. He became a supporter of the Federalist Party in 1798 and from that point on supported the policies of Washington and Adams.

Patrick Henry died in 1799 at the age of 63 on Red Hill Plantation in Virginia.

Aftermath

A residential area of ​​the US armed forces in Heidelberg was named after Patrick Henry , the " Patrick-Henry-Village ".

literature

• Henry Mayer: A Son of Thunder. Patrick Henry and the American Republic, Grove Press, New York, 1991 ISBN 978-0-8021-3815-6 (first published 1986)

Web links

Commons : Patrick Henry  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Wikisource: Patrick Henry  - Sources and full texts (English)

Wikiquote: Patrick Henry (politician, 1736)  - Quotes

• Patrick Henry (politician, 1736) in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Patrick Henry in the National Governors Association (English)
• Patrick Henry in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Now the Americans have also evacuated Patrick Henry Village. In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung of June 12, 2014 (accessed October 1, 2018).
2. ↑ New street names for US areas in Heidelberg: Why Patrick Henry should disappear In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung of November 10, 2015 (accessed on November 11, 2015).