How Patrick Henry Saved America from Its First Civil War

On this episode of Our American Stories, George Washington may have led America's army to independence, but he needed help in the aftermath of victory. Long before the Civil War, the United States nearly fractured during the battle over the Constitution — and it was Patrick Henry who stood firm and helped steer the country away from conflict. Here’s the remarkable story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue here with our American stories. Our next
story comes to us from John Regasta. He's an historian
at the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and
is a Jack Miller Center Fellow. This is the story
of the pivotal role that Patrick Henry played in holding
together the American Union in seventeen ninety nine when it

(00:33):
seemed that partisan bickering would put an end to the
American experiment. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
January fifteenth, seventeen ninety nine. George Washington is living in
retirement at Mount Vernon. On this particular date, it is
mild and sunny outside, but it is becoming very stormy inside.
You can almost sense George Washington pacing the y pine boars. Finally,

(01:04):
the man that we know as the Sword of the
American Revolution sits down picks up a stack of paper
in a quill pen to write a long letter to
the man we know as the trumpet of the American Revolution,
Patrick Henry, the former General Rights and Desperation. There is

(01:24):
a crisis when everything dear and valuable cause is assailed.
He rails at people, putting party over country to create
the crisis, measures or systematically and pertinaciously pursued, which must
eventually dissolve the union or produce coercion, by which Washington

(01:47):
meant the US army marching on its own people. The
nation was at risk, civil war loomed. Washington asked Patrick
Henry to come out of retirement to help to save
the nation that they had helped the found. Henry had
previously been offered positions as Senator, Supreme Court Justice, Secretary

(02:10):
of State, ambassador to France or Spain, but he had
sworn that he would only come out of retirement if
the nation itself was at risk, if we faced the
horrors of anarchy. Receiving Washington's letter, Patrick Henry writes, I
accord with every sentiment you expressed to me. Henry agrees

(02:33):
to run for office for were the people causing the
threat to the new nation, putting personal political ambition and
partisanship above the country. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in
the Radical States Rights Agenda of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.

(02:53):
Patrick Henry won his election. Patrick Henry always won his election,
but he dies before where he takes office. Had Henry lived,
Thomas Jefferson likely would not have been elected president in
eighteen hundred. What had Jefferson and Madison done that ignited
such concern? We need to look back to the partisan

(03:15):
battles of the seventeen nineties. The Federalists, led by Alexander
Hamilton and John Adams, had adopted the Sedition Act, making
it illegal to criticize Congress or the president. Scores of
newspaper editors were being jailed. Jefferson and Madison believed that
the nation couldn't work without a free press, fair elections

(03:39):
would be impossible. Jefferson called it a reign of witches.
In desperation, Jefferson and Madison adopted an equally disturbing response,
the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, claiming that states were independent
sovereigns that could ignore, nullify, to use Jefferson's term, federal

(04:01):
laws in their states. Under this radical states rights theory,
each state would have different federal law. Succession was a
real possibility, and Jefferson was talking about that. Several Virginia
militia officers said that if the United States was dragged
into the raging European Wars and a French army landed

(04:21):
on our shores, they would take their troops to the
French banner rather than to the stars and stripes carried
by a political opponent treason. This was the constitutional crisis
that worried George Washington and Patrick Henry, States against the
federal government, state against state, civil war. When it was

(04:45):
announced that Patrick Henry would speak on March fourth, seventeen
ninety nine, at Charlotte Courthouse, thousands gathered. When Henry rose
to speak, it was said that he was bent, He
appeared tired, he had a gray cat us, But as
he began to speak, a wonderful transformation came over him.

(05:06):
He rose up to his full height. His voice boomed
out across to the gathered thousands. Henry told the throng
that political infighting had planted thorns upon his pillow. He
told the people that Virginia was to the Union like
Charlotte County was to Virginia. Virginia had no more right

(05:27):
to block federal laws than Charlotte had to block the
laws of Virginia. Such opposition on the part of Virginia
to the acts of the general government must beget their
enforcement by military power, civil war, foreign alliances. Henry Warren
that Virginia would face a federal army led by George Washington,

(05:50):
who will dare to lift his hand against the father
of his country, to point a weapon at the breast
of the man who often led them to battle and victory. Now,
this being an eighteenth century election, people had been drinking,
and a drunk in the crowd raising a hands I
would Henry rose up, turned on him, glaring, you dare

(06:12):
not do it in such a parricidal attempt. The steal
would drop from your nerveless arm. This was classic Patrick Henry.
He tells the crowd. If the administration has done wrong,
let us all go wrong together. Let us trust God
and our better judgment to set us right hereafter united,

(06:37):
we stand, divided, we fall. Henry reminds the people that
he had opposed the Constitution. He had warned the federal
government would become too powerful and would interfere with the
rights of the people. I warned you, I warned you,
he seems to say. But we agreed. I didn't agree,

(07:00):
Henry explains, But we the people agreed to the Constitution.
It was necessary to submit to the constitutional exercise of
that power. He warned the people. If we cannot abide
by the government that we the people created, tyranny would result.

(07:21):
You can never exchange the present government, but for a monarchy.
Henry is saying, if you disapprove of government policy, go
to the ballot box. Go to the ballot box. Henry
won his election, but he dies on June sixth before
he could take office. John Randolph of Roanoke, a leading politician,

(07:44):
says that had Henry lived, Jefferson would not have been
elected president. Now, to their credit, Jefferson and Madison, after
the outcry, and after losing badly in the seventeen ninety
nine congressional elections because people believed that they were threatening
the Union, back pedaled strongly. Chastened, Jefferson and Madison seemed

(08:07):
to realize that the hyperpartisanship of the seventeen nineties in
which they had participated, brought the nation to the brink
of collapse. They realized that what unites us is more
important than what devised us, and this was the theme
of Jefferson's first inaugural address. They wouldn't publicly admit that

(08:27):
they had been wrong, that they had gone too far,
but they pulled back. President Jefferson has been accused for
two centuries of hypocrisy for not implementing some of the
radical ideas that he floated in the seventeen nineties. But
this reassessment is a far better explanation than hypocrisy. Jefferson's

(08:49):
idea of nullification was tabled until it was dredged up
by Southern fire eaters in the eighteen twenties and exploded
over Fort Sumter in eighteen sixty one. We often point
to the Revolution of eighteen hundred, a peaceful change of
parties after an election, which was an American hallmark until

(09:10):
twenty twenty, but it almost wasn't. Henry helped create the
idea of a loyal opposition. If you disagree with government policy,
you go to the ballot box. The first rule in
a democracy is the majority rules. The second rule is
equally important. The minority must accept the first rule at

(09:33):
least until the next election.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, And a special thanks to
John Augusta. He's an historian at the International Center for
Jefferson Studies at Monticello and he's a Jack Miller Center Fellow,
And what a story he told about Patrick Henry bringing
Americans at the brink of partisan crisis and at the

(10:00):
edge of perhaps our first civil war, while bringing people
down off the cliff and by the way, time and
again on this show we get at the fact that
America has been bitterly divided as it is now and
perhaps even worse. One example right here, the Civil War
sixty years after this, perhaps the worst manifestation of them all.

(10:25):
The story of how Patrick Henry calmed down a divided nation.
Here on our American Stories,