Patrick Henry Read Free Page B

a perfect model of the virtues he trumpeted, even in the specific area of personal finances. (We might well imagine Henry, ever the speculator, investing in the infamous credit default swaps that helped cause our recent recession.) But if he did not always live up to his own lofty standards, we should remember that an inconsistency between the utterly laudable principles espoused and the life actually lived is an ethical problem common among mere mortals, including the leading Founders.
    Surveying our country’s current state of affairs, Henry might also advise us to consider the ways in which we have traded the accountability and responsiveness of diffuse, local governments for the intrusive might of national government. He might warn us that national power makes for an effective empire, not good government. A big government does not tend to safeguard our liberty, either, as we have witnessed on the ragged edges of the Bush and Obama administrations’ prosecution of the War on Terrorism. Intrusive body scanning at airports, warrantless wiretapping, rendition of terrorism suspects to
secret prisons, and torture are only examples of the sorts of misdeeds to be expected from a mammoth government and military that seemingly can do whatever it wants. What James Madison called the Constitution’s “parchment barriers,” intended to restrict the government’s growth, seem ever more feeble against the power of our massive federal system. 12
    In America, Henry’s memory has taken on a vague, patriotic cast that fails to capture his fractious yet exemplary life. The “real” Henry was branded a traitor and apostate on multiple occasions by his many enemies, including Thomas Jefferson. His vision of the American republic was not a matter of sentiment and grand words and gestures; it was grounded in virtue, religious faith, and responsive local government. Standing against his fellow Founders James Madison and Thomas Jefferson at almost every turn in the 1780s and ’90s, and steadfastly opposing the adoption of the Constitution, he was the boldest of patriots. As a country, we may have chosen national power over decentralized government and individualistic freedom over virtue. But in 1776, Patrick Henry’s ideals of liberty, religion, a moral society, small government, and local politics were essential principles upon which America was built.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    Thanks to my colleagues and friends in Baylor University’s history department and Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, including David Bebbington, Jeff Hamilton, Barry Hankins, Philip Jenkins, Byron Johnson, and Rodney Stark; at Basic Books/Perseus Books Group, including Lara Heimert, Alex Littlefield, Caitlin Graf, Katy O’Donnell, Michelle Welsh-Horst, Antoinette Smith, and Adam Eaglin; and my agent and friend Giles Anderson. Thanks to David Groff for his stellar editing work; to Thomas Buckley, Jeff Polet, and my Baylor assistant Thomas DeShong for reading the manuscript and saving me from a host of errors; to Karen Gorham at the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation for research assistance, as well as the staffs at the Library of Congress, the University of Virginia Special Collections, the Library of Virginia, and other repositories of Henry papers; and to the Earhart Foundation for supporting the project with a summer stipend. As always, I am so thankful for the unfailing love and support from
my wife, Ruby Kidd; my sons, Jonathan and Josh; and my mother, Nancy Kidd. I am dedicating the book to my father, Michael Kidd, who passed away unexpectedly before the book’s completion. I hope that this small gesture conveys my gratefulness for his legacy in my life.

INDEX

    Abolitionists
    See also Emancipation; Manumissions
    Adams, John
    First Continental Congress and
    on Henry as a military commander
    ideological purity of
    as presidential candidate
    as vice president
    Adams, Samuel
    Addison, Joseph
    Administration of