Not Your Father's Founders (11 page)

Berkeley, Virginia
April 5, 1726−April 24, 1791
Virginia's Odd Man Out

Benjamin Harrison was like the sixth man on a basketball team. The starting five included George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and Carter Braxton. Harrison would have started on a lot of other teams, but historians focused more on his contemporaries because of their credentials.

One of the major differences between Harrison and his Virginia peers in the lead-up to the Revolutionary War was his age. With the exception of Wythe, Harrison was older than most of the Virginia delegates at the First Continental Congress. Wythe and Harrison were both born in 1726.

A second difference was education. Although Harrison had matriculated at William & Mary College, he did not graduate, as did most young men from affluent families in Virginia at the time. That explains in part why he was not elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses until he was nearly thirty years old, which gave him a late start in politics.

Harrison spent most of his youth managing the family's large estate following his father's death. That did not give him time to fulfill the political obligations that were almost mandatory for young men from aristocratic families at the time. But he did not like what he was seeing in the 1760s, as the British government passed acts aimed at siphoning off Americans' money. Thus, he was eager to curb what he felt were Britain's infringements on Americans' freedom.

Harrison took the initial step toward that goal in 1756 when he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses for the first time. He served a two-year term as a representative from Surry County, then took an eight-year hiatus. Harrison was elected again in 1766 to represent Charles City County. He became a leader in the house. That was a double-edged sword for him.

The pro-independence and the loyalist factions in Virginia both wanted him on their side.

Virginia's Royal Lieutenant Governor Francis Fauquier tried to seduce Harrison into accepting an appointment to his Executive Council in 1765 after the House of Burgesses passed its anti–Stamp Act resolutions in defiance of the act. Harrison turned down the offer, telling Fauquier he preferred to act according to republican principles.

Harrison made it plain to his fellow delegates that he wanted to end Britain's right to rule over the Americans. His toast at a dinner on September 2, 1774, made that clear: “A constitutional death to the Lords Bute, Mansfield and North.” Why he included Bute was a mystery. He had been King George III's confidant and prime minister, but he had resigned in 1763. Mansfield and North were legitimate political targets, however. Mansfield was the lord chief justice of the King's Bench, and North was the chancellor of the exchequer. They were influential officials who were instrumental in developing and implementing Parliament's tax legislation.

Harrison was occasionally named to chair the prestigious Committee of the Whole at the Second Continental Congress, a revolving appointment. One of those times was in 1776. As such, he was privy to deliberations, communications, and decisions regarding a variety of matters, ranging from General Washington's dispatches to the regulation of trade and the overall state of the colonies. His evenhanded approach and calm demeanor made him an effective leader, especially as a member and chairman of the Board of War created in 1776 to oversee the American army and the conduct of the war.

Toward the end of the Revolutionary War, Harrison was reelected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and named Speaker.

Harrison left the House of Burgesses in 1782 after being elected as governor of Virginia. He was reelected twice, which was the maximum number of times he could serve as governor. But he was not through serving Virginia.

Based on his history and reputation, Benjamin Harrison was elected to Virginia's Constitution ratification committee. He was not a proponent of the document, because it did not contain a bill of rights.

Virginia took an unusual two-step approach to ratifying the U.S. Constitution. Step one was the declaration of ratification. Step two was a recommendation that a bill of rights be added.

Perhaps because of his opposition to the Constitution as written, and certainly in deference to his ill health at the time, Harrison did not take an active part in the debate. However, he served on a committee charged with drafting a sample bill of rights.

Harrison had two more opportunities to serve his fellow Virginians after the ratification. The first was another term as governor, which he turned down. The second was in the state legislature. He was elected to that body in April 1791. He died the day after the election.

In the long run, Harrison was every bit as effective as his better known contemporaries. He proved, however, that the people who helped gain independence did not have to be ostentatious. All they had to be was dedicated and industrious—as he was.

Hanover County, Virginia
May 29, 1736−June 6, 1799
Master of Sound Bites

Patrick Henry's father, John, provided him with homeschooling that included a background in Latin. When it came to learning law, Patrick taught himself. He also acquired well-developed persuasive skills as a youth, which came in handy when he took his bar examination and throughout his political life.

Even though he had no formal training in the law, Henry easily passed his bar exam in 1760. He set up a practice in Williamsburg, Virginia, which flourished quickly.

Henry came to prominence in 1763 when he argued the Parson's Cause in Hanover County, which was one of the first indications of a schism between Britain and the colonies. The case involved the relationship between tobacco and Anglican clergymen's pay. A 1748 Virginia law allowed the clergymen to be paid in tobacco—16,000 pounds each per year. Normally, the market price for tobacco was two cents a pound. That is what the clergymen grew accustomed to, even though they thought they were underpaid. But due to droughts in 1759 and 1760, the market price of tobacco soared when the scarcity of the product created a seller's market. That created a conflict with the unpopular Two Penny Act the Virginia House of Burgesses had passed in 1758, which mandated that debts in tobacco were to be paid in currency at two pennies per pound. The ramifications of the law upset the clergymen in the early 1760s; they thought they should be paid according to the higher market price. The clergymen appealed to British authorities, and King George vetoed the bill. The Virginia legislators interpreted the veto as an infringement on their right to self-rule.

One clergyman, James Maury, sued the county on his counterparts' behalf for back pay to compensate for the uptick in the market price of tobacco in 1759 and 1760. Patrick Henry, still a novice attorney at the time, argued the county's case. He focused on British interference in local politics as a central issue in the case, claiming that local law took precedence, and urged the jury to award Maury only one penny in damages. He was vociferous against British interference in his oratories during the trial.

In the end, the jury agreed with him. Henry won the case for the county and the clergy gave up their protest. Young Henry earned a reputation as an outspoken critic of British interference in domestic issues and established a pattern of arguing for the colonies' right to independence. From that point on, Henry was in demand as a lawyer. The next step in his career was entering the political stage.

In 1765, Henry was elected to the House of Burgesses, where he became an ardent supporter of the right to bear arms. The young firebrand was not popular at first, especially when he introduced five resolutions against the Stamp Act on May 30, 1765. The burgesses were for the most part still loyal to the king, and many of them considered Henry a traitor. He won them over, though, and the burgesses adopted four of his resolutions. Henry's persuasive skills had nudged Virginia down the path to rebellion and independence. Moreover, he established his position as Virginia's leader in its battle for independence.

For the next ten years, Henry urged his fellow Virginians to throw off their allegiance to the king and push for their independence. He advised them to arm themselves, especially after word reached Virginia about the skirmishes between British troops and Massachusetts patriots.

Henry expanded his sphere of influence outside Virginia in the 1770s. He was one of Virginia's seven delegates to the First Continental Congress. Henry was assigned to several committees, but it was his speaking skills that earned him notice when he introduced the idea of a unified America.

Henry hit the high mark of his oratorical skills in March 1775 in his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech in Richmond, Virginia. The words he used were typical of his pleas to Virginians to arm themselves for self-defense. His views were remarkable, since Henry was a Quaker, and Quakers were (and are) pacifists.

Virginia's royal governor John Dunmore, fearing an armed rebellion, ordered the removal of some gunpowder from a Williamsburg magazine. Henry the orator morphed into Henry the militia leader. Shortly after the British marched on Concord, Massachusetts, Henry forced Dunmore to return the gunpowder. Any chance of a reconciliation between the two leaders ended. Dunmore returned to England in July 1776. He retained his title, but his authority left the colonies with him.

Henry had a brief military career during the Revolutionary War, but he never served in the field. Since he did not have any significant military experience, that was probably a good thing. His peers were sure he would be more valuable as a statesman.

Henry served as Virginia's governor from 1776 to 1779, and again from 1784 to 1786. In the interim, he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. One of his preoccupations in the 1780s was fighting ratification of the proposed U.S. Constitution. Henry favored strong state governments and a weak federal government, whereas the U.S. Constitution being offered advocated just the opposite. It passed despite his opposition.

Patrick Henry's spirit was sorely missed in Virginia after his death in 1799. Even though he had performed most of his public service in his home state, his contributions were felt nationally—and the words for which he is best known, “Give me liberty or give me death,” still resonate today.