America 250
PATRICK HENRY: ‘GIVE ME LIBERTY!’
BY CRAIG SHIRLEY O
ne turning point alone did not lead to the Ameri- can Revolution in the same way that the bomb- ing of Pearl Harbor led to
our entry into World War II. However, Patrick Henry’s speech
at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, probably ranks with the shot heard round the world, the Boston Tea Party, and Bunker Hill as an event that sparked the uprising of the American colonists against the British Crown. “Is life so dear or peace so sweet
as to be purchased as the price of chains and slavery?” he asked the
congregation. “Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me lib- erty . . . or give me death!” Henry wasn’t new to the fi ght.
Back in 1765, Virginia’s House of Burgesses, at Henry’s urging, passed a series of resolves “denouncing the parliamentary taxation and asserting the colonists’ right to be taxed only by their elected representatives.” At the time, Henry was only 29. The British had been abusing the Americans for years with various acts to tax and control them. For every Sam Adams and John
Adams in Massachusetts, there was a Thomas Jeff erson and Patrick Henry
THOMAS PAINE: SUMMON TO BATTLE
BY CRAIG SHIRLEY O
n jan. 10, 1776, an unlike- ly revolutionary in the form of Thomas Paine published Common Sense. The book, only 47 pages
long, electrifi ed the colonies. Paine was a recent immigrant from
Great Britain, where he had tried and failed at numerous businesses before taking up writing. And his writing was explosive. Common Sense became an overnight sensation, being read by everybody who could read in the colonies — and by King George III. It was not only a declaration of war,
but a summon to battle. Paine set out his belief in the rights
of man, free and without government oppression.
52 NEWSMAX | MAY 2026 Paine had fi rst written Common
Sense anonymously, but his identity later became known. One English his- torian wrote: “It would be diffi cult to
in Virginia. No wonder these two states were most responsible for the passion and intellectualism of the American Revolution. Within months of his speech, Vir-
ginia had its own state constitution and instructed its delegates in Philadelphia to vote for indepen- dence.
Paine was a recent immigrant from Great Britain, where he had tried and failed at numerous businesses before taking up writing.
name any human composition which had had an eff ect at once so instant, so extended, and so lasting.” The book sold more than 100,000
copies, and was translated into many languages. He was at Trenton with George Washington, ready to cross the Dela- ware to take on the British, but Wash- ington sent him back to Philadelphia, telling Paine that his writings were too important to the Revolution.
COOPER DAVID COLEMAN | HAVE CAMERA WILL TRAVEL/ALAMY
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