Liberty Or Death: Which Would You Choose? (And Why?)

When did you last hear a barn burner speech like this? Today, public speakers too often succumb to the lure of guilt into helping others. 250 years ago, they inspired a passion to better ourselves first—because you can’t save anyone if you’re sinking.

The crowd bustles in St. John’s Church. No scheduled sermon today, though, but they would soon get one. It’s Thursday, March 23, 1775, day four of the Second Virginia Convention in Richmond, Virginia. The air wafts thick with rebellion. Tensions between Great Britain and its American colonies could not have been higher.

Just ten days back, on March 13, British authorities under New York’s Cadwallader Colden, gunned down two “Liberty Men” trying to protect their rights after King George ruled against them. Ethan Allen of the Green Mountain Boys dubbed it “The Westminster Massacre,” (see, “Are You A Loyalist or A Rebel,” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, November 3, 2016). No doubt, word of this incident had spread to the ears of those gathering in Virginia.

Voices clashed inside St. John’s. The delegates wrestled with a brutal choice. Among them stood a man. The nephew of the well-regarded preacher, he was a respected lawyer known for his fiery oratory skills.

“Mr. President,” he starts, “it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth—and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?”¹ His words hit like a preacher’s thunder, building to a roar.

Then he cuts to the chase: “There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free—if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending—if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained—we must fight!—I repeat it, sir, we must fight!!”²

He lands it hard: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!—I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”³

With that, Patrick Henry stood down, convinced he had swayed the room to brace for war against Britain. The vote’s tight—closer than you’d expect—but his fire tips the scales. The militia resolution passed that day. His concluding seven words—“Give me liberty, or give me death!”—turn into a battle cry, echoing with national pride, courage, and resilience for 250 years. Today we’d call it a meme. Beyond the legend, they’re a compass that can guide us even within just our local region.

But hold on! Did Patrick Henry really say those words?

No 1775 record exists. Newspapers of the day skipped the rhetoric on display within St. John’s walls, only printing the resolutions spawned by those debates. William Wirt’s 1817 biography, The Life and Character of Patrick Henry, gives us the first written taste, 42 years later.

Wirt fanned the flames, and the legend of “Give me liberty or give me death!” blazed over the decades.

Enter Edward A. Pollard in 1870, ready and willing to pour water on the whole thing. His article “Historic Doubts Concerning Patrick Henry,” published in The Galaxy, backed up his premise. And he’s got a case. “It is an unwelcome task to destroy a pleasing and romantic picture which we have been in the habit of accepting as true. But if we are to speak with the severity of the historian, we have to say that the evidence that Patrick Henry ever made such a speech is not worth a bauble, and that, on the contrary, there is reason to believe he never did utter said oft-quoted invocation! We say so much, because it is only Wirt who reports the speech; because he produces it in such connection as to show that it is he (the author) evidently, though not by literal confession, making a speech for himself; and because, if Henry had so spoken, it is likely that it would have been noticed by some of the numerous and capable audiences, the utterance being so bold, and not likely to pass unchallenged by other memories.”⁴

Pollard suggests Wirt may have been influenced by Joseph Addison’s 1812 play Cato: A Tragedy, specifically, “Sempronius’ Speech for War.” That’s not a stretch. A popular school lesson book featured “Sempronius’ Speech For War” when Writ was growing up.⁵

The coincidence is unmistakable. Sempronius has the line: “My voice is still for war. / Gods! can a Roman senate long debate / Which of the two to choose, slavery or death?”⁶ A bit on the nose, don’t you say?

Then Pollard cites Wirt’s quoting Judge St. George Tucker, who describes Henry as having “all the calm dignity of Cato.”^7,8 Pollard snuffs this out as “a stoicism quite unlike the fierce and incandescent product of Wirt. This, certainly, could not have been the speech that tradition tells of.”⁹

Hold on! Addison has Cato himself saying: “It is not now a time to talk of aught, / But chains or conquest, liberty or death.”¹⁰

Maybe Tucker meant that Cato, not the Roman one. Maybe Wirt didn’t ape Addison—Henry did! The Founding Fathers lived and breathed this play. It was performed at Harvard in 1758, Philadelphia in 1759, and Providence in 1762, to name a few.¹¹

Henry wasn’t alone. Patriots loved Cato. Nathan Hale’s “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” catches Cato’s line, “How beautiful is death when earned by virtue? / Who would not be that youth? What pity is it / That we can die but once to serve our country!”¹²

Wirt didn’t shy away from his shortcomings. He admitted so in the book. He never met Patrick Henry, nor did he see Henry’s speech. He wrote as an investigative reporter would, interviewing people who were there or knew people who were there, like Chief Justice John Marshall. He told Writ how his father Thomas Marshall, a Convention delegate, described Henry’s speech. The elder Marshall told his son Henry’s words burned hot “as one of the most bold, vehement, and animated pieces of eloquence that had ever been delivered,..”¹³

Because of this, it’s easy to accept Writ’s rendition of Patrick Henry’s speech. It captures the spirit, if not the exact words, of Henry’s oration.

As a result, Pollard’s critique gained no respect among his contemporaries and even less respect today. Many saw through Pollard’s agenda back then. A Confederacy apologist, he sought to undermine the mythos that supported the foundation of the United States of America. Knocking down one of its most solid pedestals—the “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death” speech—followed that strategy.

Oh, and by the way, speaking of mythos, Pollard was the fellow responsible for coming up with the “Lost Cause” legend of the Antebellum South. He published his book, “The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates” in 1866. By 1870, people were on to him.

But arguing over the precise wording of Henry—he spoke from notes, not script—dodges the real deal. There’s stronger proof he swayed the delegates than he didn’t say it. The resolution he helped push through packs more wallop than those seven-words ever could. Don’t believe me? Read it for yourself:

“Resolved, that a well regulated militia, composed of gentlemen and yeomen, is the natural strength, and only security, of a free government; that such a militia in this colony would forever render it unnecessary for the mother country to keep among us, for the purpose of defence, any standing army of mercenary forces, always subversive of the quiet, and dangerous to the liberties, of the people, and would obviate the pretext of taxing us for their support.”¹⁴

Historically, Henry’s fires addressed a lack of fair representation exemplified by the passage of the Stamp Act by the British parliament. The resolution presents a solution to that inequity. Without liberty—true liberty–inequity compounds over time. Left unchecked, it piles up until it reaches a critical mass. That’s when society requires someone with the demeanor of Patrick Henry to shake the sleepwalkers and break a few eggs.

Think of our region’s inequity. Albany is the new king (with strings yanked by New York’s boroughs). The king creates impractical mandates we’re stuck funding. The king creates taxes that siphon our cash for pet projects. The king creates divisions within our communities that prevent our region from acting as one unified voice. Washington’s a distraction—Albany’s the place that impacts us most.

Today’s prominent voices continually coax us with guilt to keep doling out. They trick us into believing we have the luxury to coast in cushy comfort, that we’ll swallow the status quo. But charity can drain us dry. Next thing you know, we’ll be the ones begging for alms.

250 years ago, men like Patrick Henry torched the all too comfy crowd kissing the king’s boots. He lit a fire to stand tall first because they were no good sinking. That “save yourself first” spark worked. It forged a new nation to save us all.

That spark’s fading now. The new king bets we’ll keep sinking under the load—and like it. But Henry’s fire says, “No! Stand tall first, or beneath the briny deep we’ll be.”

And that’s the grit we need today.

So, will you let our inequity fester? Or are you ready to stand tall and whip up that omelet to feed us all?

¹ Wirt, William, The Life and Character of Patrick Henry, Desilver, Thomas & Co., Philadelphia, 1836, 9th edition, originally published 1817, p.138
² Ibid, pp. 140
³ Ibid, pp. 141-142
⁴ “The September Magazines,” The Daily Evening Telegraph (Philadelphia), Monday, August 22, 1870, p.6
⁵ Scott, Williman, Lessons in Elocution: or, A selection of pieces in prose and verse, for the improvement of youth in reading and speaking, as well as for the perusal of persons of taste. With an appendix, containing examples of the principal figures of speech and emotions of the mind, Messrs. Chamberlaine, R. Cross, 1788
⁶ Addison, Joseph, Cato: A Tragedy, Act II, Scene I
⁷ The Daily Evening Telegraph
⁸ Wirt, p. 140
⁹ The Daily Evening Telegraph
¹⁰ Addison, Joseph, Cato: A Tragedy, Act II, Scene I
¹¹ Sterner, Eric, “Joseph Addison’s Cato: Liberty on the Stage,” Journal of the American Revolution, November 2, 2016, https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/11/joseph-addisons-cato-liberty-stage/ downloaded March 23, 2025
¹² Cato Act IV, Scene I
¹³ Wirt, p. 142
¹⁴ The Virginia Gazette, Thursday, March 30, 1775, p.2 https://www.newspapers.com/image/1144064100/