ANearly 250 years ago, four weeks before the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Patrick Henry rose in St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, to call on Americans to prepare for a war he believed was inevitable. He concluded his call to arms with the famous words, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
Patriots adopted Henry’s dramatic refrain and militiamen sewed it into their hunting shirts. Since then, his words have echoed through the centuries, here and abroad. In 1845, Frederick Douglass referenced Henry when he wrote about the slaves’ struggle for their freedom. Over a century later, when thousands rallied for freedom in Tiananmen Square and fought for democratic rights as protesters in Hong Kong, they also invoked Henry’s words.
Still, Henry’s phrase has been taken by some as a radical call to resist nearly any government action. Timothy McVeigh quoted Henry after his anti-government bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995 killed 168 people and injured 700. In 2020, signs attacking health regulations demanded, rather confusedly, “Give me freedom or give me COVID-19!” Protesters seeking to undermine a democratic election on January 6, 2021, quoted Henry. His famous phrase can be found on everything from dust covers for AR-15 rifles to a Tea Party manifesto.
Rather than a call for democratic freedom, Henry’s mantra has become a radical plea. But wrapping anti-government campaigns in Henry’s words betrays a fundamental historical misunderstanding that reflects an increasingly dangerous American fixation on personal freedom at the expense of fellow citizens and our shared government.
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Henry was never simply a tax protester or an opponent of government regulation. The problem, as we learn in school, was taxation without representation. Henry always recognized the right of the community-empowered government to enact binding laws and regulations – even if he did not agree with the outcome.
In 1788, Henry led the Anti-Federalist effort that opposed the ratification of the U.S. Constitution because he believed it would result in a government that was too powerful and distant from the people. When the Constitution was ratified despite their objections, some Anti-Federalists sought to enrage the public and undermine its implementation. When they called on Henry to lead their efforts, he firmly rebuffed this opposition, insisting that change must be sought “in a constitutional manner.”
Henry’s commitment to the community’s right to govern was never more evident than in his final political campaign.
In 1798, Thomas Jefferson, despairing over the Sedition Act, which criminalized political dissent, proposed repeal in his Kentucky Resolutions: the idea that a single state could declare a federal law “null and void, of no force or effect.” Jefferson turned to the defunct Articles of Confederation and revived the idea that the nation was merely a union of independent states.
George Washington, realizing that Jefferson’s hasty theories were likely to lead to anarchy or secession, asked Henry to come out of retirement and oppose the dangerous new doctrine. The ailing Henry agreed.
On March 4, 1799, thousands gathered outside the Charlotte Courthouse, correctly suspecting that this would be Henry’s last public speech. Henry did not disappoint. He reminded the crowd that he had led the Anti-Federalists who opposed ratification of the Constitution because a powerful government could undermine the rights of the people. Now, it seemed, his predictions had come true.
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But Henry also reminded the crowd that “we the people” had ratified the Constitution and that it was now “necessary to submit ourselves to the constitutional exercise of that power.” Jefferson, Henry explained to the crowd, was dangerously calling for measures that violated the Constitution.
Henry, the great Anti-Federalist, warned that if we cannot live within the framework of the Constitution which “we the people” have accepted, “we may forever say goodbye to representative government. The present government” – which the community had approved – “can only be replaced by a monarchy.”
Even when people ignored his warnings, even when the government violated people’s rights, even when he himself disagreed with the Sedition Act, Henry recognized that the community had the right to decide and to express its dissent through its elected representatives, not by refusing to obey the law. That is the essence of a democracy: we must join with our fellow citizens even when we disagree, and express our disagreement through voting and peaceful protest, not through violence.
A modern fixation on Henry’s “Give Me Liberty” speech as a license for unlimited personal freedom is a historical lie and symptomatic of a larger problem. Our fixation on personal freedom has morphed into a disregard for the interests of the broader community that were at the core of America’s founding.
The founders would be horrified.
The freedom that American patriots fought for was not a license to do whatever one wanted, but the right to be part of a community that governed itself, a government that, to use Jefferson’s phrase from the Declaration of Independence, “derived its powers from the consent of the governed.” Henry was clear that in such a government, a “loyal opposition” would have to seek reforms “in the constitutional way”: at the ballot box.
John Ragosta, PhD/JD, is the author of For the people, for the country: Patrick Henry’s last political fight (Virginia 2023). The Road to 250 series is a collaboration between Made by History and Historians for 2026, a group of early Americanists committed to creating an accurate, comprehensive, and equitable public memory of the American founding on the upcoming 250th anniversary.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME hereThe opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors..
