Lion of Liberty (33 page)

‘Is this tame relinquishment of rights worthy of freeman?' he cried out.

‘
No!'
came the cry from gallery buckskins. Presiding officer George Wythe gaveled the hall to order.

‘Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury necessary and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty?'

‘
No!
' And again, the rap of Wythe's gavel.

‘Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty?'

‘
No!'

‘The new form of government . . . will oppress and ruin the people!'

The gallery erupted in angry noes until Wythe's gavel restored order.

‘It is said eight states have adopted this plan. I declare that if twelve and one half had adopted it, I would with manly firmness . . . reject it!'

The gallery cheered.

‘But I am fearful I have lived long enough to become an old-fashioned fellow. . . .' His voice softened, and he smiled at the gallery. ‘If so, I am contented to be so. . . . Twenty-three years ago I was supposed a traitor to my country.'

‘
No-o-o-o-o!'
the gallery protested.

‘I was then said to be a bane of sedition, because I supported the rights of my country. . . . I say now our privileges and rights are in danger. . . .' He paused, then appealed to the gallery buckskins again. ‘Is not the ancient trial by jury preserved in the Virginia Bill of Rights?'

‘
Yes!
' they answered.

‘And is that the case in the new plan?'

‘
No!
' the gallery responded angrily.

‘No, sir!' he echoed their response.

Henry insisted that the existing Confederation of American States deserved “the highest encomium: It carried us through a long and dangerous war: It rendered us victorious in that bloody conflict with a powerful nation: It has secured us territory greater than any European monarch possesses.

“Consider what you are about to do before you part with this Government,” he thundered.
⁵

In arguing for perpetuation of the Confederation, Henry cited Switzerland as proof that

With Federalists shifting uncomfortably in their seats, Henry went on and on, hour after hour, haranguing the delegates and spectators, turning from one delegate to another, staring one down, then another, then pointing to the heavens and opening his arms wide to appeal to the galleries—to the heavens—to God himself, as he had at Richmond's St. John's Church twenty-three years earlier.

“There was a perfect stillness throughout the House and in the galleries,” Henry's cousin Judge Edmund Winston recalled. “One spectator in the gallery was so stirred by Henry's vivid description of federal enslavement that he involuntarily felt his wrists to assure himself that the fetters were not already pressing his flesh.”
⁷

“The Constitution is said to have beautiful features,” Henry turned to Federalist chairman Wythe.

Henry stopped suddenly.

A murmur spread through the hall as Henry's eyes focused on the crowd at the door, then bent over to whisper to the delegate seated beside him, “I see my son in the hall.”

Henry had left his oldest son, William, at home as guardian of his wife and family and the plantation. Fearing some emergency had brought the young man to Richmond, he asked his colleague to find out. While Henry remained standing and pretended to search his notes so as not to lose the floor, his friend marched up the aisle, found William Henry, then trotted back to Henry's side—beaming: Dolly had given birth to another son, he whispered. Alexander Henry was her sixth—and Henry's twelfth. Henry broke into a grin, but, in the charged atmosphere of the convention hall, he decided against an announcement and simply contorted his face. The grinning Belgian hare turned back into an avenging American lion:

Edmund Pendleton had claimed that the Constitution provided ample means to prevent tyranny and abuses in government: “We will assemble in convention, recall our delegated powers, and punish those servants who have perverted powers . . . to their own emolument.”
⁸

Henry repeated Pendleton's claim, then stared at the old man for several moments, his head cocked to one side in evident disbelief.

“O, Sir,” he replied. “We should have fine times indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people.”

After the roars of laughter subsided, he asked the embarrassed Pendleton,

Henry scoffed at Washington's claim that anarchy would ensue without the new Constitution. “I am not well versed in history,” Henry argued, “but I will submit to your recollection whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people or by the tyranny of rulers? I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny.” Henry predicted that the Constitution would create “a great and mighty president with . . . the powers of a king” and give Congress the power of “unlimited ... direct taxation” and powers “to counteract and suspend” state laws. Like the British government's Intolerable Acts, the proposed American government would have powers to send troops into any state to enforce federal laws. Those powers in the hands of Parliament, he reminded the convention, had provoked the Revolutionary War.

But, he added, the most insidious power given to Congress was the right under Article 1, Section 8, “to make all laws necessary for carrying their powers into execution.”

“Will you be safe,” he all but shouted, “when you trust men at Philadelphia with power to make any law that will enable them to carry their acts into execution? By this, they have a right to pass any law that may facilitate the execution of their acts.” He warned that the “necessary and proper” clause gave Congress the right to hang men “who shall act contrary to their commands” and order the army “to aid the execution of their laws?”

“One of our first complaints under the former government,” he reminded the convention,

Henry then demanded amendments to the Constitution securing to the states and the people every right which was not conceded to the general government.

Henry paused, then startled the hall with a roar:

“Why not give us our rights!

“In express terms!

“In language that could not admit of evasions or subterfuges?

“We are giving power,” he boomed.

“They are getting power!”

Henry went on to condemn Federalists for rigging earlier convention elections. He insisted that the majority of Americans opposed the Constitution, but were “egregiously misled.” Pennsylvania, he charged, has “perhaps” been tricked into it.

With that, the gallery erupted into whoops and cheers. Antifederalist delegates rose to their feet to join the mass acclaim. “And,” Henry tried shouting over the crowd: “And, Sir . . . And, Sir.” As the audience grew quiet, Henry smiled, “But Sir, I mean not to breathe the spirit nor utter the language of secession.”

Again the gallery erupted, and after the chair restored order, Henry stood silent in a dramatic pose, looking down at his feet before whispering apologetically, “I have trespassed so long on your patience.” Henry had held the floor for seven hours.

After a long silence, Governor Randolph tried to regain the initiative, protesting Henry's refusal to yield the floor. “Mr. Chairman! If we go on in this irregular manner . . . instead of three or six weeks, it will take us six months to decide this question”—which, of course, was exactly what Henry had in mind. With the dinner hour long past, Randolph wanted to convince the convention of “the necessity of establishing a national government,” but he conceded, “it is too late to enter into the subject now.”
¹³
Henry had won the day.

Aware now of Henry's intention of dragging out the proceedings to a stalemate, Federalists returned the next day intent on seizing the floor to prevent another interminable Henry oration. One after another, they
spoke, each attacking one of Henry's objections before yielding to his colleague. Governor Randolph dealt with Henry's objection to national government control over the military, asking, “Can Virginia send her navy . . . to bid defiance to foreign nations? . . . We must have a navy, sir . . . a navy will require money . . . how shall we raise it?.”
¹⁴