On Patrick Henry and the Constitution

Hiewon Ahn

The Constitution is one of the most well-known and iconic documents of the United States, and yet it too had its share of opposition. Among these were the passionate orator, governor, planter, attorney and founding father Patrick Henry.

Henry was one of the many leaders who believed that a Constitution was the wrong way to go forward with the United States of America. At the time, it almost seemed as if America was ‘the Great Experiment’ of government and power which would prove to the world if a people could really be capable of governing themselves through logic and reason instead of fate and inherited titles.

As this was the case, many people were deeply invested in their beliefs for the future of America, and Henry was in no way exempt from this feeling. In particular, he believed that the Constitution- without even a Bill of Rights- gave too much centralized power to the US government. His speeches, which would go on for hours, would appeal to the political histories of the United States and the hatred and fear of complete monarchy that stirred in a majority of Americans during this time, only having just seen through a war with Britain. What’s more, Henry’s speeches contained a surfeit of rhetorical questions that implored the audience to rethink if the Constitution would really benefit the people of America or revert them to the imbalance of power feared by many.

Clearly, his long, verbose speeches had an effect on the audience of Virginia; the Constitution was eventually passed, but only by a difference of 5 votes. Had Henry tipped those votes over to his side, America as we know it today would have had a very different history.

Reading this, I was able to explore firsthand the complex dynamic that is early United States’ history. Much of the time, the people (albeit a select minority of people) weren’t just fighting for land or religion; it was a debate to define a good government and the consciousness of the governed, the definitions of liberty and who was or wasn’t entitled to it.