Lesson 1.3 – Patrick Henry: The Voice of Revolution

Where Washington embodied restraint, Patrick Henry embodied passion. In 1775, with the colonies on the brink of war, Henry rose at the Virginia Convention and thundered words that still stir hearts:

⭐ “Give me liberty, or give me death!”

Henry was not a man of half-measures. To him, liberty was not a policy debate but a matter of life and destiny. His voice electrified his generation, reminding them that liberty would not be won by caution alone — it required courage and sacrifice.

His fire complements Madison’s careful design and Washington’s humble precedent. Liberty requires all three: the structure, the example, and the passion to defend it.

That fire still matters today. Justice Gorsuch has reminded us that rights mean little if courts allow government to override them in the name of expediency:

⭐ “The right to trial by jury should mean no less today than it did at the Nation’s founding.”

And Justice Thomas has insisted that rights do not exist only for the popular or the powerful — they are “first-class” protections that cannot be bargained away.

In our time, the threats to liberty do not come from British troops but from ideologies that demand submission — whether in the form of enforced patriotism tests, compelled speech in classrooms, or bureaucratic rules no citizen can hope to navigate. The courage of Patrick Henry is still required: the courage to say no when government tries to seize what does not belong to it.

Patrick Henry’s cry for liberty reminds us of the courage needed in the Revolution. Nearly a century later, one justice stood nearly alone to defend that same liberty against the tides of his day: John Marshall Harlan, the Great Dissenter.