Patrick Henry, one of the founding fathers of the United States, is perhaps best remembered for having said, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

But he had much more to offer his country. Self-educated, he was a planter who became a lawyer, politician and orator. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, becoming known for his inflammatory speeches against the 1765 Stamp Act, and later became a delegate to the Second Virginia Convention and the First Continental Congress, and was twice elected Governor of Virginia.

During the years of his legal practice, Henry represented Virginia taxpayers in a landmark case known as the Parson’s Cause (officially, Maury v. The Vestry of Hanover County). In his defense of colonial autonomy, he made the following impassioned statement:

“A King, by disallowing Acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a Tyrant and forfeits all rights to his subjects’ obedience.”

He was, of course, referring to King George III:

But once again, as my old friend Will Shakespeare said in The Tempest:

“What’s past is prologue.”

Henry may as well have been talking about this would-be “King”:

In any century, in any country, one tyrant is pretty much the same as all the others.

And none of them deserve their subjects’ obedience.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
4/21/26