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straining them. It is not to be supported by the States; the pockets of the people are to be searched for its maintenance. What signifies it to me that you have the most curious anatomical description of it in its creation? To all common purposes of legislation it is a great consolidated government. You have not a right to legislate but in trivial cases; you are not to touch private contracts; you are not to have the right of having your armies in your own defence; you are not to be trusted with dealing out justice between man and man. What shall the States have to do? to take care of the poor, repair and make highways, erect bridges, and so on, and so on! Abolish the State legislatures at once. What purposes should they be continued for? Our legislature will indeed be a curious spectacle; one hundred and eighty men marching in solemn farcical procession, exhibiting a mournful proof of the lost liberties of their country, without the power of restoring it. But, sir, we have the consolation, that it is a mixed government! that is, it may work sorely in your necks, but you will have some comfort by saying that it was a federal government in its origin!" !

Mr. Henry, however, did not depend on ridicule to prevent the adoption of the Constitution, and he acknowledged the talent that was opposed to him. Mr. Wirt observes, before this Mr. Henry's eloquence had appeared in occasional flights, but, during this discussion, every power of his mind was put in requisition, and, in the great competition of talents, Mr. Henry's powers of debate shone preeminent. It was nearly at the conclusion of this debate when that celebrated incident occurred, in which the members of the convention

'Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, p. 306.

rose without the formality of an adjournment; the members rushing from their seats with precipitation and confusion, being unable to witness the scene. The time approached when the question. was about to be taken on the adoption of the Constitution, and there was some doubt what would be the result. Taking advantage of the excitement that prevailed,

He "made an appeal, which, in point of sublimity, has never been surpassed in any age or country of the world. After describing, in accents which spoke to the soul, and to which every other bosom deeply responded, the awful immensity of the question to the present and future generations, and the thrilling apprehensions with which he looked to the issue, he passed from the house, from the earth, and looking, as he said, 'beyond the horizon that binds mortal eyes,' he pointed, with a countenance and action that made the blood run back upon the aching heart, to those celestial beings who were hovering over the scene, and waiting with anxiety for a decision which involved the happiness or misery of more than half of the human race. To those beings with the same thrilling look and action - he had just addressed an invocation that made every nerve shudder with supernatural horror, when, lo! a storm at that instant arose, which shook the whole building, and the spirits whom he had called seemed to come at his bidding. Nor did his eloquence or the storm immediately cease; but, availing himself of the incident, with a master's art he seemed to mix in the fight of his ethereal auxiliaries, and, rising on the wings of the tempest, to seize upon the artillery of heaven, and direct its fiercest thunders against the heads of his adversaries."

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1 Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, p. 313.

“But all his efforts were in vain. Either the justice of the opposing cause, or the power of his adversaries, or the prejudged opinions or instructions of the members, rendered his reasoning and his eloquence equally unavailing. Out of a house of 168 members, the ratification was carried by a majority of 10."

He closed his last speech with the following remarks:

"I beg pardon of this house for taking up more time than came to my share; and I thank them for the patience and polite attention with which I have been heard. If I be in a minority, I shall have the painful sensations which arise from the conviction of being overpowered in a good cause. Yet I will be a peaceable citizen! My head, my hand, and my heart shall be free to retrieve the loss of liberty, and remove the defects of that system in a constitutional way. I wish not to go to violence, but will wait with hopes that the spirit which predominated in the Revolution is not yet gone, nor the cause of those who are attached to the Revolution yet lost. I shall, therefore, patiently wait, in expectation of seeing that government changed, so as to be compatible with the safety, liberty, and happiness of the people.”2

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If Mr. Henry had lived in these days, and seen the subserviency of all classes of people to the slave power, we cannot but suppose he would have thought the free spirit which pervaded the land in the days of our Revolution had entirely left us, and that our people had become too debased to be reckoned among free nations. This power, as we have seen, early began to show it

'Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, p. 314. 2 Idem, p. 314.

self, and had its influence even over Mr. Henry; and, while he and the Virginia convention were exerting themselves to secure liberty to their own race, the principles of the revolution had already been so far lost upon them that they were then willing to engraft the system of slavery upon the country, as will be perceived by the resolutions they proposed. It will be noticed, however, that these amendments, that Virginia proposed, secured to the individual "freeman" nearly all the rights for which Mr. Henry had so powerfully contended, and probably it was through his influence they were brought about. We shall soon see how those amendments were treated by the congress who took them under consideration, and what amendments were proposed and adopted by them.

Mr. Henry, it would appear, had perfect confidence in the power of the Anglo-Saxon race for self-government; but, for some reason or other, he did not have the same confidence in the Afriean race why it was so we are not able to say, unless it arose from early education. We all know how hard it is to throw off the impressions of our childhood, and how difficult it is to suppose that any practices to which we have been accustomed are wrong, let them be of what nature they may; and it is to this alone we can ascribe the course Mr. Henry took on the subject of slavery. It is difficult to explain how a man so conscientious, and so jealous of his own and others' rights, when those others were not connected with the African race, could take such an exception to this

people, and particularly when he lamented with so much feeling the cruelties practised upon them in the operation of the slave-trade. We can account for it in no other way than that he let his selfishness get the better of his judgment, or, that the early habits of his youth, and of those around him, and the assertion so falsely and yet so perseveringly made, that the negro, if free, would be a savage, or that he could not take care of himself, or that the general liberty of the country would be endangered, had such a powerful hold on his mind 'he could not be convinced to the contrary by his own better thoughts, or by the suggestions of others.

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