Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry addressed the Second Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, as delegates debated whether the colony should prepare for war with Great Britain. Henry urged the convention to organize Virginia's militia and warned that petitions to George III had failed after the Coercive Acts and the fighting atmosphere around Boston. Tradition preserved his closing words as, 'Give me liberty, or give me death,' and the convention soon adopted measures to arm the colony.

Henry's speech crystallized a constitutional argument already spreading through the colonies: if Parliament and the Crown would not respect colonial rights, Americans had to defend those rights by force. In Virginia, the debate pitted caution against immediate military preparation at precisely the moment when royal authority under Governor Lord Dunmore was eroding. By turning legislative debate toward militia organization, Henry helped move resistance from protest language into practical steps of self-defense.

The speech foreshadowed the seizure of powder in the Gunpowder Incident, Dunmore's flight from Williamsburg, and Virginia's later adoption of the Virginia Declaration of Rights in June 1776. It also became one of the best-known revolutionary speeches because it tied the defense of liberty to armed resistance before independence had formally been declared.