My favorite founding father. I love Patrick Henry.
What were the 10 amendments by Henry that were not included?
My favorite founding father. I love Patrick Henry.
Jefferson was in France at the time of the Constitutional Convention--he wasn't making any speeches.
Patrick Henry could have attended the convention in Philadelphia but he "smelt a rat." He led the opposition to ratification at the Virginia convention. Ironically he was joined in that effort by James Monroe and by Benjamin Harrison, a Signer of the Declaration and the father of one President and great-grandfather of another. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, later Vice President, was a delegate to the convention but refused to sign the Constitution as did a number of other respected figures.
The Anti-Federalists did a big service by forcing the Federalists to agree to a Bill of Rights (written by James Madison in the first session of Congress in 1789).
I wonder if any new school is being named for Patrick Henry and how many have been renamed because of the short-sighted proposition against any and all slave-holders. It is real hubris to make this the “feather on the scale of Justice” instead of the totality of an entire life. As an aspect of the Founder’s lives, being a slave owner should neither be applauded nor glossed over, but logic should prevail that it was by the country and institutions that they helped emplace that has resulted in, arguably, the least race-constrained society in this world.
I am ALWAYS dumbfounded at our collective luck in having this group of practical idealists for the founders of our country. From Benjamin Franklin to Gilbert du Motier (Marquis de Lafayette), we had a crop of intellectual and warrior luminaries equal if not superior to any other time or place. For them to also be wedded to the concepts of a republic and to be so resistant to self-aggrandizement, is a further wonder for the ages.