the head of his army beat down every opposition? Away with your President; we shall have a king. The army will salute him monarch; your militia will leave you and assist in making him king, and fight against you. And what have you to oppose this force? What will then become of you and your rights? Will not absolute despotism ensue?" (Here, says the reporter,

Mr. Henry strongly and pathetically expatiated on the probability of the President's enslaving America, and the horrid consequences that must result).

He then passed on to the subject of the elections under the Constitution, which he discussed at length; and when he had examined the argument of Lee, derived from the composition of the House of Commons, apologized for the time he had consumed and for his departure from the order adopted by the Convention, and indulged the hope that the House would allow him. the privilege of again addressing it, ending with the prayer, may you be fully apprized of the dangers of the new plan of government, not by fatal experience, but by some abler advocate than I."

The speech of Henry lasted more than three hours, and was not only the longest he ever made, but the most eloquent ever pronounced in public bodies. 121 Two well-authenticated instances of its effect have come down to us. General Thomas Posey was an officer of distinction in the army of the Revolution, was subsequently second in command under Wayne in the successful

121 I am inclined to think that this was the longest speech made by Henry during the session. Judge Curtis (History of the Constitution, &c.. II, 558, note) reports a newspaper rumor that Henry spoke on some one occasion seven hours, and thinks it was when this speech was delivered. Pendleton and Lee, the only speakers that day, did not consume much of the morning before Henry began and spoke till the adjournment. We know that the speech of Randolph, delivered in reply the following day consumed two hours and a half, and that Madison and George Nicholas made long and elaborate speeches after him. In the debates, the speech of Randolph occupies more space than the speech of Henry, but in the case of the latter, we have the confession of the reporter that he could not follow him in his pathetic appeals. Tradition affirms that if Henry had offered at the close of his speech a motion of indefinite postponement of the Constitution, it would have succeeded by a considerable majority. The testimony of General Posey would lead us to think so.

Indian campaigns of that general, and was warmly in favor of the adoption of the Constitution; yet he declared to a friend that he was so overpowered by the eloquence of Henry on this occasion as to believe that the Constitution would, if adopted, be the ruin of our liberties as certainly as he believed in his own existence; that subsequent reflection reassured his judgment, and his well considered opinion resumed its place. 122 Mr. Best, an intelligent gentleman of Nansemond, who heard the fervid description which Henry gave of the slavery of the people wrought by a Federal executive at the head of his armed hosts, declared that so thrilling was the delineation of the scene, “he involuntarily felt his wrists to assure himself that the fetters were not already pressing his flesh; and that the gallery on which he was sitting seemed to become as dark as a dungeon.'' 123

An incident occurred while Henry was speaking which shows that the feelings of the husband and father were not wholly lost in those of the patriot. As his eye ranged over the house, when in the height of his argument, he caught the face of his son, whom he had left a few days before in Prince Edward as the protector of his family during his absence, and he knew that some important domestic event had brought him to Richmond. He hesitated for a moment, stooped down, and with a full heart whispered to a friend who was sitting before him: "Dawson, I see my son in the hall; take him out." Dawson instantly withdrew with young Henry, and soon returned with the grateful intelligence that Mrs. Henry had been safely delivered of a son, and that mother and child were doing well. That new-born babe, called from a maternal ancestor Spotswood, lived to become familiar with the features of his father's face, and to enjoy his splendid fame; and in the quiet burial-ground of Red Hill, at the mature age of sixty-five, was laid by his side.194

122 Life of Dr. A. Alexander by his son, page 190.

123 Letter of Joseph B. Whitehead, Esq., to the author. To save repetition, the reader will regard all letters, when the name of the person to whom they are written is not stated, as addressed to the author. One evidence of the effect of the speech was seen in the fact that the following day three of the strongest federalists, Randolph, Madison, and George Nicholas, the last the most powerful man of the three in debate at a great crisis, occupied the whole of the session.

124 Henry, on his return home, told this fact to his wife, who told it to her son John, who told it to me.

When Henry finished his speech Edmund Randolph rose to deprecate the irregular mode of debate and the departure from the order of the House. He said that if the House proceeded in that irregular manner, contrary to its resolution, instead of three or six weeks, it would take six months to decide the question. He should endeavor to make the committee sensible of the necessity of establishing a national Government, and the inefficacy of the Confederation. He should take the first opportunity of doing so; and he mentioned the fact merely to show that he had not answered the gentleman fully, nor in a general way, yesterday. The House then adjourned.

CHAPTER III.

The effect of Henry's speech both in and out of the House had been great. It startled the friends of the new system from that sense of security in which the more sanguine had indulged; and they saw that unless prompt measures were adopted to counteract the present feeling all hopes of a successful issue would be vain. Accordingly, on Friday, the sixth day of June, and the fifth of the session, the federalists summoned to the field the most able array of talents, which, abounding as they did in able men, their ranks afforded. It was feared that Henry might rise to deepen the impression which he had already made; for Randolph in his few remarks the previous day had not secured the floor, and every effort must be exerted to prevent such an untoward movement. It was evidently arranged that Randolph should discuss the whole subject in an elaborate speech; that Madison, who had been ill, should be on the alert to succeed him; and should his feeble health prevent him from consuming the entire day, that George Nicholas, who was more familiar with large public bodies than either Randolph or Madison, should exhaust the remainder of the sitting.

When the President called the Convention to order, a debate arose on the returns of an election case, which was soon dispatched, and the House resolved itself into committee-Wythe in the chair. As soon as he was fairly seated, Edmund Randolph rose to reply to the speech delivered by Henry. In an exordium of rare beauty, in which he called himself a child of the Revolution, he alluded to the early manifestations of affection to him by Virginia at a time when, from peculiar circumstances well known to the House, he needed it most, and to the honors which had been bestowed upon him; and in which he declared that it should be the unwearied study of his life to pro

mote her happiness, and that in a twelvemonth he should withdraw from all public employments. Then launching into his subject, "We are told," he said, "that the report of dangers is false. The cry of peace, sir, is false; it is but a sudden calm. The tempest growls over you. Look around: wheresoever you look you see danger. When there are so many witnesses in many parts of America that justice is suffocated, shall peace and happiness still be said to reign? Candor requires an undisguised representation of our situation. Candor demands a faithful exposition of facts. Many citizens have found justice strangled and trampled under foot through the course of jurisprudence in this country. Are those who have debts due them satisfied with your Government? Are not creditors wearied with the tedious procrastination of your legal process?—a process obscured by legislative mists. Cast your eyes to your seaports-see how commerce languishes. This country, so blessed by nature with every advantage that can render commerce profitable, through defective legislation is deprived of all the benefits and emoluments which she might otherwise reap from it. We hear many complaints of located lands-a variety of competitors claiming the same lands under legislative acts;125 public faith prostrated, and private confidence destroyed. I ask you if your laws are reverenced? In every well-regulated community the laws command respect. Are yours entitled to reverence? We not only see violations of the Constitution, but of national principles, in repeated instances.

"How is the fact? The history of the violations of the Constition from the year 1776 to this present time-violations made by formal acts of the Legislature. Everything has been drawn within the legislative vortex. There is one example of this violation in Virginia of a most striking and shocking nature-an example so horrid that if I conceived my country would passively permit a repetition of it, dear as it is to me, I would seek means of expatriating myself from it. A man who was then a citizen was deprived of his life in the following manner: From mere reliance on general reports, a gentleman in the House of Delegates informed that body that a certain man (Josiah Philips) had committed several crimes, and was running at large perpe

125 A hit at George Mason, who drew the first land law.