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F These four men were among many of the Antifederalists who fought against ratification of the Constitution of 1787. These four are my personal favorites and I seek to bring parts of them out publicly as we were not taught this in school.
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F These four men were among many of the Antifederalists who fought against ratification of the Constitution of 1787. These four are my personal favorites and I seek to bring parts of them out publicly as we were not taught this in school.
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The speaker introduces four men, Patrick Henry, Luther Martin, Samuel Bryan, and Robert Yates, who are referred to as the "four wise men of the founding era." These men foresaw the potential corruption and abuse of power in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The speaker questions the objectivity of viewing the Constitution as a valid document and discusses how the ratification process may have been tainted by the Federalists' control over communication channels. The speaker highlights the lack of representation of inland farmers and common people at the convention, suggesting that the delegates were primarily wealthy aristocrats. The speaker also mentions the financial burden on delegates and the lack of state compensation as evidence of potential conspiracy. The representation of delegates from different states is analyzed, showing that many were from commercial and planter-dominated areas, with little representation from the common people. Patrick Henry's concerns about the deleg ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ� Well, welcome back everyone to my sub stack and our search into the actual facts of the founding of this country and especially directed towards the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Now, there in my opinion, and there are going to be four men that I really concentrate on in this series, and they are none other than Patrick Henry, Luther Martin, Samuel Bryan, and Robert Yates. And I am going to take the liberty of naming them the four wise men of the founding era. So, hang on, we're about to jump in, both feet, in a study of these wonderful gentlemen. Now, to cover the contributions of these four gentlemen is going to take quite a bit of time, and I hope that this knowledge is worth something to you, and I hope that you will come back as we continue this series. Because these four men saw and predicted exactly what was coming our way, and the great part about this is that two of these men were actually at the Constitutional Convention. And both of them left because they felt that the Constitution was exceeding the authority which had been granted to it, and they could no longer, as honorable men, continue to participate. So, let's take a look here, and we'll kind of jump right in. A thorough study of this founding era of our country can be quite perplexing when one seeks to judge the founding through objective rather than emotional eyes. Recently, I heard a proud libertarian in his almost daily podcast claim that our Constitution is valid because it was ratified by the people, or to be more precise, the people's representatives meeting in a convention. Now, when this libertarian's guest, who was also a libertarian, began to discuss how the ratification process may have been tainted, specifically about how the Federalists had used their power over the post office, a primary means of communication during that time, along with the newspapers of the day in 1787 and 1888, which mostly were owned by the same group of the wealthy aristocracy, how they managed to suppress the message of the Anti-Federalists. This prominent historian immediately changed the subject. Now, why is it in today's world that most people refuse to objectively face the fact that our vaunted Constitution may have been conceived by acts of corruption, force, and conspiracy? Well, you might say, hey, man, where's your proof of your allegation? A proper investigative historian would ask, show me your evidence. Well, folks, there are many bits of evidence I can provide, and I will do my best to get them out there to you, but first, to take a look at a few major points for brevity and clarity. And so, here we go. Who were the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and did they represent all segments of society in all of the 13 states during that period of American history? If the delegates did not represent a broad spectrum of the citizens of the states at that time, who and what interests did they represent? Well, overall, 74 delegates from 12 states were selected by state legislatures for the Philadelphia Convention, of which 19 refused, for one reason or another, to attend. Now, only a handful of attending delegates could be considered leading liberals, if we would call them that, at that time. Liberal meant something much different in that period of history than it does today. In fact, it meant those who pursued liberty, all of whom of these so-called, as I just said, liberals, were moderates, like George Mason of Virginia or Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who were sympathetic to the idea of a convention as a device for only amending or strengthening the Articles of Confederation. Now, it was only as the true dimensions of this nationalist, monarchist design began to unfold that these people started to grow wary and eventually go into full-on opposition, including just leaving rather than participate in the corruption. Now, this Federalist strength tended to come not only from the wealthy and the eminent, but also from the urban commercial interests, which were merchants, artisans, and the majority of commercial farmers and leading urban exporters. In short, nationalist strength came from men who supported centralizing tariffs and navigation laws, raising the value of their own properties and their own securities. And they also wanted an aggressive foreign policy, all at the expense of the taxpaying inland farmer in America of that time. And surprisingly, in seven of the twelve states, no representation whatsoever at the convention was allowed to the inland farmer, which was a clear and enormous weighting of the convention in favor of the national interest. So folks, at this point, I think it's critical that we bring into reality the fact that not one state that sent delegates to the convention paid for their expenses or paid for their time there. Now, I can't prove this was a conspiracy, but stop to think about it. During that time frame, who could afford to leave their homes and their farms and their plantations, if that be the case, unless they had overseers? Just the common man, who could afford to go and pay their own expenses and sit at a convention of three plus months without some form of compensation? Now, I'm not sure, again, I can't say that's a conspiracy involved in that, to make sure that the only people who could afford to attend the convention were, in fact, of the wealthy aristocracy. But it stands to reason that no inland farmer or no common person could have afforded to take three months away from their families, three plus months away from their families, away from their work, away from their farms, away from whatever, and pay their own expenses to attend a convention. Very good point, and I really look at it as this absolutely ensured that the only people at that convention would be of the wealthy aristocracy. But now let's look back at the delegates. Let's look at Massachusetts. Of the four delegates who attended, three were from the commercial seaboard, and one was a follower of Theodore Sedgwick from the commercial Connecticut Valley town of Northampton. None, absolutely zero, of the numerous small inland towns were represented, to say nothing of those who recall Shaysites from the West, who had rebelled against excessive taxation. The two New Hampshire delegates came from the main commercial seaboard town of Portsmouth and Exeter. Again, absolutely zero representation from the often disgruntled northwestern interior of the state. None of the three Connecticut delegates represented the inland subsistence farmer of the north, and all came from the commercial towns east of the Connecticut Valley. In Pennsylvania, the situation was particularly blatant, as every one of the seven delegates were from Philadelphia, seven from the city proper, and one from the surrounding countryside. Now, of course, Benjamin Franklin showed up, even though he isn't listed as an official delegate. He showed up, and he lived in Philadelphia. Jumping to the south, representation was similarly weighted in favor of men of the most, what should we call, Federalist leanings. The larger planter dominated coastal plains. In South Carolina, the four delegates were all large lowland planters residing in Charleston. Not one representative of the backcountry or upstate South Carolina was at the convention. The five North Carolina delegates all came from the commercial large planter plantation dominated northeastern section of the state. In Virginia's complex politico-economic geography, there were seven or eight major sections in the state, of which two, the lower river valleys, and especially the old feudal North Neck oligarchy of the Potomac, were the Federalist large planter folks. Of the seven-man Virginia delegation, two men came from the North Neck, and four from the lower river valleys. Only James Madison, from Orange County, did not fit that paradigm. But he came from an area not too far from the upper Rappahannock. But despite that, as we know, comprising a plan before he even got there, Madison was a strong Federalist, or quasi-monarchist. Now, what of the other five states? Georgia, it is true, sent two delegates from the East and two from the West, but all four were overwhelmingly Federalist. For its part, Maryland was always accessible to the sea, and was ultimately all eastern planter-run tidewater. Now, Delaware distributed its five delegates between Newcastle County and the two southern agricultural counties, but the whole of this small state was largely a tributary of Philadelphia and the Delaware River, and consequently, Delaware, too, was overwhelmingly Federalist. New Jersey had no east-west division in the commercial agricultural, as did most of the other states. Instead, it had two areas, one called East Jersey, which was actually just an extension of New York City. The other, West Jersey, was actually just an extension of Philadelphia. It is no surprise, then, that the state was overwhelmingly Federalist throughout the 1780s. Only in New York, therefore, was there a sectional political struggle in which the interior was firmly represented, and therefore the Anti-Federalists predominated, and even here the Anti-Federalists came from the commercial Hudson Valley town of Albany, and those would be Robert Yates, one of our four wise men, and John Lansing, Jr. Now, please, folks, let's not forget the thoughts of Patrick Henry on the delegates to the convention as he expressed quite openly. Henry's concerns with the convention rested on the fact that almost all of the delegates chosen to attend were men of substantial wealth who had exploited the economies of their respective states in their pursuits of personal wealth and power. And Patrick Henry saw their quest for a new government to be nothing but an effort on their part to collude with others to dominate the economy of the entire country in order to increase their wealth and their power, all on the backs of the agrarian West and South. Now, the above would indicate that the common man, or what I just gave you would indicate that the common man, such as those in the western parts of the states, had zero representation at the convention. In fact, all of the delegates from Pennsylvania were basically residents of one city, Philadelphia, considering the present political environment wherein the people of the rural parts of almost every state are completely dominated by the populated cities of their state, most of whom were dominated by the people of Pennsylvania. Most of these folks were dominated by socialists of one ism or another. Would we consider today that the representation at the convention was fair and balanced? I don't know how. Well, pardon me, another question for you. How much should a group of wealthy aristocrats who plot prior to the convention to completely disregard the mandates of the Congress of the day, the ruling document, the Articles of Confederation, and their state assemblies, instead of amending the present form of government, cast it aside totally and created a new form of government in which a large majority of them would hold prominent positions? The president of the convention was president of the United States, and his Federalist buddies got very plumb assignments in that first government. Now, would it matter that all of the delegates to the convention, of all of the delegates to the convention, I'm sorry, 36, had been subordinate to George Washington during the Revolutionary War and were members of the Order of the Cincinnati? Hmm. Now, would it matter that all of the delegates to the convention, 39, were lawyers or judges? Were the farmers equally represented? Would it matter that prior to the convention, beginning in May, early May, George Washington had communicated his preferred plans for a new government to many of the prospective delegates and to the governors of the states? Were the farmers of western Pennsylvania, western Georgia, western Kentucky, what is now Kentucky, provided the same opportunity? No. Now, is it significant that of the 39 delegates who signed the Constitution in September of 1787, 26 of them, which leads to 67%, would all hold high political office in the government they had just themselves created? How many farmers, mechanics, fishermen, or just common folk were in this administration? Zero. Is it of any significance that even though three delegates refused to sign the finished product that was the Constitution, and that would have been George Mason, Elbridge Ferry, and Edmund Randolph, Gouverneur Morris still included this phrase in the Constitution. Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present. An out and out lie. Great propaganda though. When the Constitution document arrived at the Confederation Congress, Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee, at the urging of Patrick Henry, another one of our four wise men, objected to the national government being allowed to tax the people without the consent of all of the states as required in the Articles of Confederation. And that the Constitution be bottomed upon a Bill of Rights guaranteeing freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and a right to trial by jury in criminal and civil cases. The right to free assembly and protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Now folks, I know you folks are going to go, well, that was in the Bill of Rights. Well, that was not in the Constitution originally. And the delegates to the Constitutional Convention voted it down, a Bill of Rights, unanimously by state. Now, sadly, the Federalist-dominated Congress rejected the motion, stating that body had no authority to change the wording of the Constitution. Strange indeed, coming from a political body which had previously authorized only the amending of the Articles of Confederation, and not the adoption of an entirely new document. Ah, that dreaded word, conspiracy, rears its ugly head once again. Why did the Federalists so oppose a true Bill of Rights for the people they were preparing to rule? Was the rights of the people ever a consideration by the Federalists at the Convention? I can't find it if they were. Then, when it came to ratification of the Constitution, let's look at what transpired in the state of Pennsylvania. We do know that all of the delegates to the Convention were from only one city, Philadelphia. Would it be remarkable to know that the delegates to the ratification convention were also only from Philadelphia? Now, while almost everyone has heard the story about Benjamin Franklin telling the lady who asked that we have a republic if you can keep it, but how many know that Franklin led a group directly from the Constitutional Convention and marched to the Pennsylvania State Assembly Hall, which was in the same building, boldly interrupted the Assembly's proceedings and urged the state legislators to call a ratification vote immediately and to ratify the Constitution without any debate. Franklin all but promised the delegates that if they would do so, Philadelphia would become the capital of the United States. Now, some of the backcountry farmers who were members of the Assembly who had been suspicious that all of the delegates had been from Philadelphia and none from any of the other areas of the state, they simply refused to attend this immediate vote and left, leaving the Assembly far short of a quorum, a required quorum. Now, Thomas Mifflin, a delegate to the just-recessed Constitutional Convention, and himself a quite wealthy Philadelphia merchant, ordered the Assembly sergeant-at-arms and a clerk to find at least two members who had left and to order them back to the Assembly for a vote. Now, what was described in history in Pennsylvania as a mob of Federalists and the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer followed the sergeant-at-arms to the building house where the out-of-town delegates to the Assembly were lodged during the proceedings, and this group forcibly dragged two delegates back to the hall and physically restrained them until a vote could be taken to convene the ratification convention in November. Well, folks, so much for the consent of the governed and a divinely inspired Constitution. Well, when this news filtered back into the rural areas of western Virginia, the people began to actually attack known Federalists and burn effigies of other prominent Federalists and copies of the Constitution that were sent there. They just burned them. The French Charles de Feuille in Pennsylvania, Louis Guillaume Otto, was appalled, and he wrote to his foreign minister in Versailles, and I would like to quote from that. The Legislative Assembly of Pennsylvania imprudently revived the jealousy and the anxiety of Democrats. In a blunder that is difficult to explain, Pennsylvania limited its delegation to the Constitutional Convention only to Philadelphians. The other counties, whose interests have always been different from those of the Capitol, were hardly satisfied and certainly not represented. In forcing the minority to ratify the new government without debate, the Legislature of Pennsylvania has acted so harshly and precipitously as to render any new government highly suspect. It could strike a fatal blow. The alarm has sounded, the public is on guard, and they are now examining in detail what they would have adopted blindly." Well, one could assume that this French diplomat must not have been informed that the Constitution was inspired by a deity, huh? Well, probably someone should have told him. So not only were the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 all from Philadelphia, all of the delegates to the Ratification Convention were from Philadelphia. Well, this fact, too, didn't escape Patrick Henry, one of our four wise men, for he stated the people of Pennsylvania had been tricked into ratifying the Constitution by stating, and I quote, "...only 10,000 people were represented in Pennsylvania, although 70,000 had a right to be represented." Unquote. Was the Constitution formed in Philadelphia in 1787 such that it required deception, force, and coercion to achieve ratification? Why did the Federalists who had composed it in secret continue in their efforts to have it ratified under that same cloak of secrecy? Is it possible that a document that required conspiracy, force, and deception should ever deserve to be honored through the pages of history? Well, folks, I certainly don't think so, and I don't think that you do either. Now, folks, I would like to take the liberty of jumping in here to one of those four wise men, and I'll try to go into detail on all of them, and it's not going to be able to accomplish that in just one of my Substack podcasts, but we will get it done. Well, I'm going to start with none other than Patrick Henry. Well, now, most all of us have heard of Patrick Henry, but outside of his give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death words at St. John's Church on March the 23rd of 1775, the great majority of the people in this country know little to nothing about the man whose voice struck the match to the powder keg that became the American Revolution with his speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses in May of 1765. Now, ironically, for that speech, Henry would be accused of treason by the wealthy aristocracy and that body for his scalding words aimed at King George III. Yet, 23 years later, when Henry would attack the gentry aristocracy of America, who had unconstitutionally written a new and established a new form of government at the Virginia Ratification Convention, Patrick Henry would be accused of much worse. Well, there are not a great deal of resources on any of these four men that I will call the four wise men of the founding era, but we'll go with everything that I've been able to locate. Now, Patrick Henry's complete opposition to what was called the divinely inspired Constitution presents a real problem for parchment worshippers. Many among the founders wrote that Henry was the most devout Christian among them, and his life story backs up their beliefs. Hard to explain how a Constitution allegedly inspired by God was so hated and strenuously opposed by such a devout Christian as Patrick Henry. So how do they deal with that? They just ignore Henry, except to quote his give me liberty or give me death story. Henry was seen as such a threat to ratification of the Constitution. Several Federalist newspapers published false stories claiming that Patrick Henry had embraced the Constitution and was supporting its ratification. Such was the influence among common folks. And you thought fake news was a recent phenomenon, right? Patrick Henry's influence was felt in almost every activity of the founding era. For example, a letter from Frederick Sedgwick to Benjamin Lincoln during the period, which was the first Congress, was considering a Bill of Rights, speak to Henry's influences over both James Madison and the Congress itself. Now, Sedgwick refers in his last sentence to the completion of the conspiracy of the Federalist. So here's the quote. Listen carefully. No man, in my opinion, in this country, has a more fair and honorable intention or more ardently wishes the prosperity of the public. But unfortunately, Mr. Madison has not that strength of nerves which will enable him to set at defiance popular and factious clamors. His system of amendments we must fairly meet, and must adopt them in every instance in which they will not shackle the operations of this government. Let me read that again. We must adopt them in every instance in which they will not shackle the operations of our government. Folks, these Federalists believe that the rights of the people would shackle their government. To continue, it is a water gruel business and I hope will be so managed as only to produce a more temperate habit in the body politic. Now, pay close attention to this last sentence. Those substantial amendments which would have a tendency to produce a more complete and natural arrangement of our national union, we must despair of attaining at present. Unquote. Folks, the Federalists intended even more tyrannical and he just gave voice to that. Now, most revealing during this time frame was a letter from Robert Morris to Francis Hopkinson in 1789 during that time period when the Bill of Rights was being debated in Congress. It was Robert Morris who had been in charge of finances during the Revolutionary War and whose activities came under full attack from one of our other four wise men, Samuel Bryan, which we will get into when we get to Mr. Bryan. Sentinel alleged in his essays that Morris and others had embezzled millions of dollars of monies belonging to the government itself. Now, one can only wonder what Robert Morris' reference to, and I quote, If they make one amendment truly so, I will hang. Unquote. What did that mean? I think we have to know. And then here's another one. He said, The House of Representatives are now playing with amendments. This was his entire quote. But if they make one truly so, I will hang. Pardon me. Poor Madison got so cursedly frightened in Virginia that I believe, pardon me, he has dreamed of amendments ever since. This, however, is ad captandum. Unquote. Well, folks, as I was looking into this Patrick Henry in preparation for this program, I attempted to determine how many different podcasts I would think to complete a comprehensive study. I just could not be sure of exactly how many it might take. But anyway, even at that, I don't think that there's anything out there that deserves our attention much more than does a complete and comprehensive breakdown of these four wise men of the founding era. So let's get into those four wise men. And I don't think we could possibly start anywhere better than Patrick Henry himself. And Patrick was a most complex individual. But at his essence, at his core, in his mind, he was just another American, a champion of liberty, the pursuit of which he valued higher than life itself. Was he born with this passion? Or was it something he acquired in his lessons of life? Also, was he born with these oratorical skills? Or was that an attribute acquired through trial and error, or in other words, life's experiences? Now, Patrick Henry's father was named John. John Henry had waited the respectful two years before asking his deceased best friend's widow, Sarah Syme, spelled S-Y-M-E, for her hand in marriage. John Syme had been a boyhood friend and a fellow classmate of John Henry back in Aberdeen, Scotland. And he had been the one who encouraged John Henry to move to America in 1727. But unfortunately, you know, he had passed away. John Syme had passed away at an early age. On May the 29th of 1736, a son was born to John and Sarah Henry, and they named him Patrick, after his father's brother. So, from which side of the family tree do we think that the exceptional intelligence came from? Or did Patrick Henry perhaps receive a double dose from both sides of the family? Well, let's take a look at the father's side. Such as his uncle, William Robertson, who was minister of Borthwick and Midlothian, and afterward of the old Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh, Scotland. His cousin, David Henry, the successor of Edward Cave in the management of the Gentleman's Magazine, and especially his cousin, William Robertson, who was the principal of the University of Edinburgh, and author of, you know, the name of the book, History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V. Now, let's take a look at the other side of the family, his mother. It was said, too, of the Winstons, that their talents were in excess of their ambition. Or of their energy, and were not brought into full use except in a fitful way, and under the stimulus of some outward and passing occasion. They seemed to have belonged to that very considerable class of persons in this world of whom more might have been made. Especially much talk used to be heard among old men in Virginia of Patrick Henry's uncle, his mother's own brother, William Winston, as having a gift of eloquence dazzling and wondrous like Patrick's. Nay, as himself, unsurpassed in oratory among all of the great speakers of Virginia, except for Patrick himself. Well, as a young man, Patrick didn't care much for academic pursuits. He cared much more for fishing and hunting than he did for reading. He was known to spend much more time in the woods and by the river than he was in the house or working at his designated chores. At some point, his father had had enough and took over young Patrick's education and that of his siblings, calling on his brother, Patrick, who was the rector of St. Paul's Parish. Now that was whom Patrick was named for. The children were taught Greek and Latin, as was the custom of the time, and, of course, a heavy dose of mathematics, the lone subject to which younger Patrick took more than just an obligatory interest. At the age of sixteen, Patrick's father set he and his older brother, William, up in business in a country store. After approximately one year's time, William and Patrick had no money to purchase more stock for their store, but they did possess a large stack of IOUs. Patrick and his brother would give credit to people they felt who were destitute and needed the help, and eventually it bankrupted them. But finding himself broke and unemployed, Patrick decided to get married. Wow, what a choice. Patrick married Sarah Shelton, whose father was the local tavern owner. While this, of course, appears to have been a colossal mistake, at least of timing, it may have been the very event which put Patrick on his course for greatness and honor. The parents of both Patrick and Sarah endeavored to help the young couple as much as possible, for they provided them with a small farm and a few slaves. They very soon were forced to sell the slaves and use the money from this sale to set up Patrick in another small store. But by the age of twenty-three, Patrick had acquired several small children and, believe it or not, another large set of IOUs, and he had no money with which to restock his store. So the year was 1759, and after failing twice as a storekeeper and once as a farmer, the twenty-three-year-old Virginian would meet a young man of sixteen who was on his way to the College of William and Mary. They met at a Christmas party at the home of Colonel Nathan Dandridge, and legend has it that this young man and Patrick Henry regaled all of those in attendance with their considerable skills on the violin well into the wee hours of the morning. Now this sixteen-year-old would be none other than his fellow Virginian, Thomas Jefferson. Several years down the road Jefferson would revisit that moment in words which are written in a letter, and I will quote from that letter. Mr. Henry had, a little before, broken up his store, or rather it had broken him up, but his misfortunes were not to be traced either in his countenance or in his conduct. During the festivity of the Christmas season I met him in society almost every day, and we became well acquainted, although I was much his junior. His manners had something of a coarseness to them. His passion was music, dancing, and pleasantry. He excelled in the last, and attached everyone to him by his actions. Well, folks, it has been stated that Patrick, while working in his father-in-law's tavern, which was frequented by the lawyers of the area, had become intrigued listening to their descriptions of legal proceedings and accounts of experiences at trial. Patrick, at length, began to ask questions and actually join in to their discussions. At some point during those exchanges in the tavern, Patrick Henry decided to read for the law. Now there are many and varied stories about how Patrick Henry was admitted to the practice of law. One came from Thomas Jefferson in his later years after he and Patrick's relationship had become most acrimonious, and Thomas Jefferson had even written to James Madison that they should pray fervently or devoutly for the death of Patrick Henry. Hoping to not pursue too much detail on this subject from Jefferson and others, I will revert instead to the facts as were related by Patrick Henry to Judge John Tyler, a very close friend of Thomas Jefferson and the father of the future president by the same name. You folks remember, Tip Knew and Tyler, too. So here is the quote that came from Patrick Henry himself. He said, he entered with manifest reluctance on the business. A very short time was sufficient to satisfy him of the erroneous conclusion which he had drawn from the actual clothing of the candidate. With evident marks of increasing surprise, produced no doubt by the peculiar texture and strength of Patrick Henry's style, and the boldness and originality of his combinations, he continued the examination for several hours, interrogating Patrick Henry, not on the principles of municipal law, in which he no doubt soon discovered his deficiency, but on the laws of nature, and of nations, and of nature's God. On the policy of the feudal system, and on general history, which at last he found to be his stronghold, during the very short portion of the examination which was devoted to the common law, Mr. Randolph dissented, or affected to dissent, from one of Mr. Henry's answers, and called upon him to explain the reasons for his opinion. This produced, believe it or not, an argument, and Mr. Randolph now played off on him the same arts which he himself had so often practiced on his country customers, drawing him out with questions, endeavoring to puzzle him by subtleties, assailing him with declamation, and watching continually the defensive operations of Patrick Henry's mind. After a considerable discussion he said, Mr. Henry, you defend your opinions well, sir, but now to the law and to the testimony. Here he carried him to his office, and opening the authorities, said to him, and I quote, Behold the force of natural reason. You have never seen these books, nor the principle of the law, yet you are right and I am wrong, and from the lesson which you have given me, you must excuse me for saying it, I will never trust two appearances again. Mr. Henry, if your industry be only half equal to your genius, I augur that you will do well and become an ornament and an honor to your profession, unquote. Well, you know, that's quite a study there, isn't it? You know, that we learned something, you know, that we just flat aren't taught, and how many even knew about this part of Patrick Henry's life? Well, let's continue on with our studies here on Mr. Henry, one of the four wise men of the founding era, and so Patrick Henry, without question, has to be the greatest political orator in American history. People would travel for miles to see him perform as an attorney. Anyone who opposed him in such a capacity was at a distinct disadvantage from the very beginning. Was Patrick a demagogue, as claimed by Thomas Jefferson? Did he appeal to people rationally, intellectually, or emotionally? Those who knew him best and had heard him speak on many occasions claimed he appealed to all of the human senses, including those on an intellectual level. The one thing that came through in all of his recorded speeches was a passion second to none. Patrick Henry felt strongly about what he was saying, or he wouldn't say it, and that seemed to appeal to the common man better than it did to any other figure during our founding era. Was Patrick Henry's unmatched skills of oratory inherited or acquired? I guess we've asked that question before. But if one looks at the profound effect of Samuel Davies, not only on the morality of Patrick Henry, but also his considerable abilities to enthrall a group of people into his way of thinking, one can immediately recognize the influence. But, folks, who was this Samuel Davies? Well, I'm going to read to you now from the Encyclopedia Virginia. Samuel Davies was an evangelical Presbyterian pastor and educator who lived and worked in Hanover County from 1748 to 1759. He played a critical role in the early years of the Great Awakening, the series of religious revivals that would eventually lead to the disestablishment of the Church of England as America's official church. Davies was a skilled orator whose sermons were filled with vivid language and punctuated with passionate calls for conversion to Christianity. His rhetorical style influenced future revolutionary and also future governor Patrick Henry, who as a boy would accompany his mother to Davies' church. Unlike other itinerant preachers of his day, Davies worked within the confines of English law which was set about for dissenters, and in doing so he established no fewer than eight licensed meetinghouses throughout colonial Virginia. Davies also wrote poetry as a means of spreading God's word and was one of the first colonial Americans to compose sacred hymns. Well, according to the history of the day, Davies was responsible for the conversion of both Patrick's mother and his sister to the Presbyterian faith. Henry family history shows that Patrick's mother, Sarah, would frequently drive he and his sister to listen to Davies' sermons in what was referred to as the Pole Green Church, and also to sermons held out in the open glen every Sunday during good weather. On the carriage trip back to their home, Patrick Henry's mother would require him and his sister to repeat to her, from memory, the essence of the sermons they had heard that day. Allegedly, this practice continued for some eleven years. Most likely, the first time Patrick's skills of oratory were widely heralded by the public would have been in what was called the Parson's Cause. Now here, folks, what I'm going to do is to quote from an actual book about Patrick Henry, titled The Lion of Liberty, Patrick Henry and the Call to a New Nation by Harlow Giles Unger. Okay, well, here we go. And that was, he said, and I quote, Eloquence had flowed from his family's lips for generations. The echoes of his kinsmen's voices resounded from the pulpits in Midlothian and Edinburgh to the halls of London's Houses of Parliament. Even in the far-off hills of central Virginia, the dazzling voice of his uncle and namesake, the Reverend Patrick Henry, drew worshippers from miles around for the rapture of his wondrous words each and every Sunday. Words, it seemed, directly from God himself. It was quite natural, then, that spectators flocked to Hanover County Courthouse on December 1, 1763, for the inaugural courtroom appearance of the Reverend Henry's nephew, Patrick Henry, Jr., as defense lawyer in a major case. Although Patrick had spent three years practicing mostly paper law, deeds, wills, and such, and defending petty thieves, this was his first appearance in the theatrical setting of a major courtroom case. Headlined in the press as the Parson's Cause, the case had far-reaching religious and political implications for both Virginia and Mother England, where the official Church of England supported itself by taxing landowners in each parish, regardless of whether they were Anglicans or not. In the Parson's Cause, a Church of England priest had sued the landowners of his parish, almost all of them small farmers, for failure to pay all of their taxes in 1758. If Henry lost the case, many of these men would lose not only their homes, but their property as well. Now, here we must understand and get the picture and understanding that the government of King George and the Church of England, which was a government church, had little concern for the people themselves, you know, kind of like today, but were insistent that the people ante up with taxes, even if it meant the loss of the ability to provide for their families or even to maintain ownership of their property. Folks, has anything really changed with the government of King George and the government today? Well, anyway, Patrick Henry stood strong for the common man and his rights and liberty, a practice that would continue throughout his professional and his private life. Patrick Henry's actions in the Parson's Cause were most interesting. The judge would be his father, John, and his uncle, Patrick, the minister from Midlothian, would both arrive to witness young Patrick's performance. Now, the younger Patrick went to his uncle outside of the courthouse and asked him most politely that he not attend the trial. And he stated, and I quote, I am engaged in opposition to the clergy, and your passionate appearance there might strike with such awe as to prevent me from doing justice to my own clients. Well, Uncle Patrick obliged his nephew, Patrick. He got back into his carriage and returned home. Yet the courtroom was packed. There were, besides Patrick's father, six other justices, all relatives of the Henry family, either by blood or marriage. At least 20 Anglican parsons were in attendance to support the plaintiff, the Reverend Maury, with the remainder of the courtroom filled with the local farmers who were in danger of losing their property. As for jury selection, I would like again to quote from the words of Patrick Henry's biography author, Harlow Giles Unger, and I quote, After the clerk called the case, Justice Henry ordered the sheriff to summon a jury. Of the twelve called, at least four, including one of Patrick Henry's relatives, were Presbyterian dissenters to the Anglican Church. A fifth member of the jury was one of the parishioners whom Reverend Maury was suing. Maury objected, charging that the sheriff had gone among the vulgar herd and failed to summon the proper gentleman to the jury. He complained that he knew one juror was a party in the cause, yet this man's name was not erased. He was even called in court, and had he not excused himself, would probably have been admitted. Henry shot to his feet, demanding to know whether Maury was accusing the prospective jurors of dishonesty. Taken completely aback by Henry's aggressive challenge, Maury remained silent, and Henry turned to his father, the judge, proclaiming the jurors to be honest men and therefore unexceptionable. Justice Henry agreed, and the jurors took their oaths and their seats in the jury box to await the plaintiff's argument. Patrick performed quite well during the main trial, but when he was called upon to deliver his closing argument, he stood, bowed his head, and remained silent and motionless for several minutes. Patrick's father, the judge, became concerned that his son had become tongue-tied, and he slumped in his chair, most likely in embarrassment. The defendants, whom Patrick represented, audibly groaned, and the opposing lawyer broke into a big, wide grin. Judge John Henry, at last, just shook his head and reached for his gavel to proclaim a summary judgment in favor of the Parsons. What happened next is most lost to history, with just a few words about Patrick Henry's theatrics and his ability to appeal to the common man. So, again, folks, any words that I would have would be inadequate, so I go back to the history as written by William Wirt Henry, who was in actuality a grandson of Patrick, and I quote, When he, Patrick Henry, finally spoke, he was nothing short of brilliant, modestly lowering his head at appropriate times, lifting his eyes to heaven in supplication at the right moment, roaring in rage, meowing in sorrow or pity, all but whispering one moment and thundering the next. In contrast to the pseudo-English inflections of most lawyers, he spoke the language of the common man, with a mountain drawl. His days in the tavern across the road had taught him how to win their minds and their hearts. Six feet tall, lean, cheekbones protruding from his gaunt face, Patrick marched back and forth, using every element of the stage. Instead of a defense attorney, he turned into a prosecutor, charging Morrie and the Anglican clergy with unchristian acts of extracting the last pennies from poverty-stricken farmers and forcing their wives and babies from their very homes. We have heard a great deal about the benevolence and holy zeal of our reverend clergy. But how is this manifested? demanded Patrick. Do they manifest their zeal in the cause of religion and humanity by practicing the mild and benevolent precepts of the gospel of Jesus? Do they feed the hungry and clothe the naked? Oh, no, gentlemen. Instead of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, these rapacious harpies would, were their powers equal to their will, snatch from the very hearth of their earnest parishioner his last hoecake. From the widow and her orphaned children their last milk cow, the last bed, nay, even the last blanket from the lying-in-wait woman. A wondrous change came over Patrick. His attitude became erect and lofty, his face lighted up with genius, and his eyes seemed to flash fire. His gestures became graceful and impressive, his voice and his emphasis peculiarly charming. His appeal to the passions were overpowering. Those who heard him said he had made their blood run cold and their hair to stand on end. Another witness said that spectators looked at each other in disbelief when Patrick began his presentation. Then, attracted by some strange gesture, struck by some majestic attitude, fascinated by the spell of his eye, the charm of his emphasis, they could look away no more. In less than twenty minutes they might be seen in every part of the house in death-like silence, their features fixed in amazement and awe. All of their senses listening and riveted upon Patrick, as if to catch the last strain of some heavenly visitant. In the midst of his dramatic performance, Patrick also presented constitutional arguments. He argued that the British government represented a compact between the king and his people, by which the former provided protection in exchange for obedience and support. Either party's refusal to fulfill its obligation, Patrick declared, automatically released the other party from its obligations. Henry called the Two-Penny Act necessary for the economic survival of the people. By annulling this act, the king had failed to fulfill his obligation to protect his people. Indeed, he had degenerated into a tyrant and forfeited all rights to his subjects. Obedience to his order of annulment? Treason! cried Maury's attorney. Treason! cried clergymen in the audience. The gentleman has spoken treason! Maury's lawyer shouted as he stood to address the court, and said, I am ashamed that your worships can hear it without emotion or any mark of dissatisfaction. But too bad for Maury's attorney. Henry's oration had transfixed the justices just as much as it had the other spectators, and they remained silent. As Patrick Henry ignored the interruption and continued, this time shifting his attack from the crown to the clergy themselves. In refusing to abide by the Two-Penny Act, the established church had abdicated one of its primary responsibilities to enforce obedience to the laws. When clergy cease to answer these ends, the community have no further need of their ministry, and may justly strip them of their appointments. Wow, if we would only do that now. Patrick declared, instead of damages, he cried out, Mr. Maury deserved to be punished with signal severity. With each phrase, Henry stripped away the veneer of reverence for the clergy that had suppressed the anger of country folk toward the church for generations. Citing the natural rights of Virginia free men to keep the benefits of their labor, he so fired up farmer hatred of the Anglican church that the clergyman who had come to support Reverend Maury actually fled from the courthouse in precipitation and terror. A long, satisfying silence followed, after which Patrick Henry intoned a self-spoken warning to the jury that the court had already ruled for Reverend Maury in the clergyman's first trial, and that he was there indeed only to check the amount of compensation, but accepting they were disposed to rivet the chains of bondage on their own people, he hoped they would not let slip the opportunity of making such an example of him as might hereafter be a warning to himself and his brethren, not to have the temerity for the future to dispute the validity of such laws. Henry told the jury that the law required them to award Maury damages, but it had no obligation to award him more than a farthing. Silence followed as the jury trooped out. After less than five minutes of deliberation, the members of the jury returned and awarded Reverend Maury one penny. In the explosion of hoops, yells, and cheers that followed, Maury's lawyers shouted for a mistrial, but all of the justices dismissed the motion unanimously, setting off an even louder explosion of cheers as spectators hoisted Patrick Henry onto their shoulders and carried him out of the courthouse in triumph because he had saved for them their property, their farms, and their very existence. Now folks, how many times during Patrick Henry's life was he accused of treason by the statist of that day? We should wear that insult with honor today when the statists accuse us and ask us to leave the country simply because we prefer liberty to slavery at the hands of our government. Americans could sure use an advocate for liberty today with a voice of thunder like Patrick Henry. Well folks, some of that came from the manuscripts of Colonel Meredith provided as a memorandum to William Wirt Henry. And then as I look here to give you some more references, Patrick Henry by Moses Coit Tyler, which was published in 1887. Also the writings of Thomas Jefferson and a letter to Patrick Henry Wirt, and then the papers of Patrick Henry Wirt himself. And so there we have it folks, kind of the beginning of the four wise men of the founding of America. Well folks, I guess I went a little over with that one, but I felt like it would be improper to stop midway of the wonderful news and evidence that is there about that trial with Patrick Henry. And I promise you, you may have been taught about Patrick Henry and he did the Parson's Cause, but I doubt throughout history, especially any history that comes from the statist, communist manifesto school system, I seriously doubt that you have ever gotten the particulars of the trial itself. And I am so happy to bring those to you. Now very soon I will be jumping into finishing up with Patrick Henry and then moving on to Luther Martin and then to Samuel Bryan and last if not least, but to Robert Yates. So if you care about the truth, please subscribe to my sub stack. And I thank you all and God bless. Thank you.
