America\u2019s greatest orator was born on May 29, 1736. I\u2019m referring to Patrick Henry, whose \u201cgive me liberty or give me death\u201d speech to the Virginia House of Burgess marked an important turning point in our battle for independence.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how Paul Johnson, one of America\u2019s greatest historians, describes the moment in his book, A History of the American People<\/em>. Patrick began his remarks by asking,<\/p>\n \u201cOur brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?\u201d Then Henry got down on his knees, in the posture of a manacled slave, intoning in a low but rising voice: \u201cIs life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!\u201d<\/p>\n He then bent to the earth for a few seconds with his hands still crossed, then suddenly sprang to his feet shouting, \u201cGive me liberty!\u201d and flung wide his arms, paused, lowered his arms, clenched his right hand as if holding a dagger at his breast, and said in sepulchral tones: \u201cOr give me death!\u201d He then beat his breast with his hand holding the imaginary dagger. There was silence, broken by a man listening at the open window, who shouted: \u201cLet me be buried on this spot!\u201d Henry had made his point.<\/p>\n —Chip Wood<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" America\u2019s greatest orator was born on May 29, 1736. I\u2019m referring to Patrick Henry, whose \u201cgive me liberty or give me death\u201d speech to the Virginia House of Burgess marked an important turning point in our battle for independence. Here\u2019s how Paul Johnson, one of America\u2019s greatest historians, describes the moment in his book, A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4206,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-581965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}