Patrick Henry Quotes

“Henry knew the gunpowder episode presented a new opportunity to radicalize the population against the British. He told his cousin George Dabney that Dunmore’s action was a “fortunate circumstance, which would rouse the people from North to South. You may in vain mention the duties to them upon tea and these things they will say do not affect them, but tell them of the robbery of the magazine and that the next step will be to disarm them, and they will be then ready to fly to arms to defend themselves.”
― Thomas S. Kidd, Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots

“By liberally using biblical rhetoric, Henry drew on his Christian heritage and evangelical style to place the Virginians’ struggle in a providential frame. Fighting against Britain required more than pragmatic justifications. Moderation at such a time would be an offense not just to the people of Virginia but also to God. Henry”
― Thomas S. Kidd, Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots

“Henry and most of the Revolutionary generation believed that a republic needed religion to preserve virtue, honesty, and independence lest it trespass into amoral individualism and a degenerate complacency. An ethically directionless people would eventually succumb to the enticements of a tyrant, Henry feared.17”
― Thomas S. Kidd, Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots

“Public officials were bound to act in the best interests of the republic as a whole, not to bolster their personal fortunes or to aggrandize the power or riches of their cronies. The best public servants did not need to hang on to political power, nor did they aspire to a career in politics. When the people no longer urgently needed their services, men of integrity would step away from the political arena, retiring, like Roman heroes of old, to private life on the farm. Those who sought to glorify themselves through government should be voted out. Or, in extreme cases, they should be overthrown. The”
― Thomas S. Kidd, Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots