IMrlMlS W - A Publication of Hillsdale College course, the Second American Revolution of our Civil...

6
0 0 IMrlMl S W C Hillsdale College Hillsdale, Michigan 49242 Vol . 5, No . 7 July 197 6 ACCORDING TO THEIR GENIUS : AMERICAN POLITICS AND THE EXAMPLE OF PATRICK HENRY by M . E . Bradfor d Dr. Bradford is associate professor of politics and literatur e at the University of Dallas . He received his B.A . and M .A . from the University of Oklahoma and Ph .D. from Vanderbilt University. This presentation was given at Hillsdale College in the semina r of the Center for Constructive Alternatives which dealt wit h "The Roots of American Order . " Even before the first of our bicentennial observa- tions began, it was altogether predictable that their emphasis should fall more upon the what than th e why of events transpiring during and prior to ou r original War for Independence . According to thos e responsible, no controversy could follow from thi s procedure . There is, however, a danger in submittin g to such probability and neglecting to redress th e balance of emphasis toward interpretation . For, try as we will, there is no honest way of making ou r salute to the revolutionary forefathers into a non- partisan event . What they attempted and achieved embodied a political intention and a theory of the politicall y good . And no less than the New Left distortion s of the People's Bicentennial Commission, the sup- posedly value-free and "factual" accounts of ou r received historiography which stand behind th e rites and ceremonies of our official and federall y sponsored celebrations obscure that intent an d theory . Standing in the way of the recovery o f legitimate precedent which I here recommend is , of course, the Second American Revolution of our Civil War . But that is another study . The more immediate obstacles to our under - standing of what American colonials intended b y their official separation from the mother countr y are the unrepresentative sentiments of intellectuall y interesting but sometimes deviant revolutionaries , such as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjami n Franklin, and Thomas Paine . In their stead, we shoul d concentrate upon the thoughts and actions of les s curious men, such as John Dickinson, John Adams , and the taciturn Cincinnatus of Mount Vernon . And especially we should concentrate upon the thought s and actions of that trumpet-voice of the Revolution Patrick Henry of Virginia . The great difficulty which we confront in recon- structing the thoughts of such active men as th e Virginia Demosthenes is a paucity of detailed record s and a shortage of that idol of the scholars, writte n documents . For it is a paradox of intellectual histor y —a paradox rooted in human nature—that the me n positioned on the outer fringes of the great events o f an age write the most and the most interestingl y about them, and the men at their center almos t nothing at all . Or at least since the Renaissance i t has been the rule that the modernist and secula r philosophers of change have left us a record of their speculations upon happenings with which they ha d very little to do . Letters, tracts, and pamphlets hav e furnished them with an outlet which the publi c world of action did not provide. Yet thanks to th e scholars, usually men of their own kidney, they hav e had a final victory through interpretation, a victory which stands between us and the actual deeds o f more moderate and less ingenius men . It is reasonable to claim that Patrick Henry wa s the characteristic American spokesman during th e Revolution, the epitome of Whig sentiment in tha t era . As a young man he first threw down the gauntle t of constitutional challenge in the celebrated Parson' s Case (1763) . His Stamp Act Resolves (1765 ) energized American resistance to usurpation in th e thirteen colonies and led to the inter-colonial com- munication and cooperation which issued finall y in the Continental Congress . And before the Secon d Virginia Convention of 1775, he drew his country - men after him to face up to the logic of their situa- tion and prepare for war . After that peroration, for liberty or death, an d after its general acceptance, not only by those presen t in St . John's Church but by a plurality of all Ameri- cans determined to resist the imposition of the roya l im•pri .mis (im-pri m'i ' s) adv . In the first place . Middle English , from Latin in primis, among the first (things) . . IMPRIMIS is the journal from The Center for Constructiv e Alternatives . As an exposition of ideas and first principles, i t offers alternative solutions to the problems of our time . A subscription is free on request .

Transcript of IMrlMlS W - A Publication of Hillsdale College course, the Second American Revolution of our Civil...

0

0

•IMrlMlSW

CHillsdale College Hillsdale, Michigan 49242 Vol . 5, No . 7

July 197 6

ACCORDING TO THEIR GENIUS: AMERICANPOLITICS AND THE EXAMPLE OFPATRICK HENRYby M. E. Bradford

Dr. Bradford is associate professor of politics and literatur eat the University of Dallas. He received his B.A . and M.A.from the University of Oklahoma and Ph.D. from VanderbiltUniversity.This presentation was given at Hillsdale College in the semina rof the Center for Constructive Alternatives which dealt with"The Roots of American Order . "

Even before the first of our bicentennial observa-tions began, it was altogether predictable that theiremphasis should fall more upon the what than thewhy of events transpiring during and prior to ou roriginal War for Independence . According to thos eresponsible, no controversy could follow from thi sprocedure . There is, however, a danger in submittin gto such probability and neglecting to redress th ebalance of emphasis toward interpretation. For, tryas we will, there is no honest way of making ou rsalute to the revolutionary forefathers into a non-partisan event .

What they attempted and achieved embodied apolitical intention and a theory of the politicallygood. And no less than the New Left distortion sof the People's Bicentennial Commission, the sup-posedly value-free and "factual" accounts of ourreceived historiography which stand behind th erites and ceremonies of our official and federallysponsored celebrations obscure that intent an dtheory. Standing in the way of the recovery o flegitimate precedent which I here recommend is ,of course, the Second American Revolution of ourCivil War . But that is another study .

The more immediate obstacles to our under -standing of what American colonials intended bytheir official separation from the mother countryare the unrepresentative sentiments of intellectuall yinteresting but sometimes deviant revolutionaries ,such as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjami nFranklin, and Thomas Paine . In their stead, we shouldconcentrate upon the thoughts and actions of les scurious men, such as John Dickinson, John Adams ,and the taciturn Cincinnatus of Mount Vernon . Andespecially we should concentrate upon the thought sand actions of that trumpet-voice of the Revolution—Patrick Henry of Virginia .

The great difficulty which we confront in recon-structing the thoughts of such active men as theVirginia Demosthenes is a paucity of detailed recordsand a shortage of that idol of the scholars, writtendocuments . For it is a paradox of intellectual history—a paradox rooted in human nature—that the menpositioned on the outer fringes of the great events o fan age write the most and the most interestingl yabout them, and the men at their center almos tnothing at all . Or at least since the Renaissance ithas been the rule that the modernist and secularphilosophers of change have left us a record of theirspeculations upon happenings with which they ha dvery little to do . Letters, tracts, and pamphlets hav efurnished them with an outlet which the publi cworld of action did not provide. Yet thanks to thescholars, usually men of their own kidney, they hav ehad a final victory through interpretation, a victorywhich stands between us and the actual deeds ofmore moderate and less ingenius men .

It is reasonable to claim that Patrick Henry wa sthe characteristic American spokesman during theRevolution, the epitome of Whig sentiment in tha tera. As a young man he first threw down the gauntle tof constitutional challenge in the celebrated Parson' sCase (1763). His Stamp Act Resolves (1765)energized American resistance to usurpation in th ethirteen colonies and led to the inter-colonial com-munication and cooperation which issued finall yin the Continental Congress . And before the Secon dVirginia Convention of 1775, he drew his country -men after him to face up to the logic of their situa-tion and prepare for war .

After that peroration, for liberty or death, an dafter its general acceptance, not only by those presen tin St . John's Church but by a plurality of all Ameri-cans determined to resist the imposition of the royal

im•pri .mis (im-pri m'i' s) adv . In the first place . Middle English ,from Latin in primis, among the first (things) . .

IMPRIMIS is the journal from The Center for Constructiv eAlternatives. As an exposition of ideas and first principles, i toffers alternative solutions to the problems of our time . Asubscription is free on request .

prerogative through force, the Declaration of In -dependence was anticlimactic . Yet even in tha tdevelopment, Henry played a major role . For thedocument which young Jefferson composed i nPhiladelphia, effacing himself and speaking fo rrepresentatives of the Commonwealths there assem-bled, had behind it the instructions of the variouscolonial legislatures : particularly the instructions ofthe Virginia Assembly drawn in the late spring o f1776 by or under the influence of their chief of men .I quote here the precise lenguage of that instrumentin the draft of Patrick Henry :

As the humble petitions of the Continenta lCongress have been rejected and treated wit hcontempt; as the parliament of G . B. so farfrom showing any disposition to redress ou rgrievances, have lately passed an act approvin gof the ravages that have been committed upo nour coasts, and obliging the unhappy men whoshall be made captives to bear arms againsttheir families, kindred, friends, and country ;and after being plundered themselves, to becom eaccomplices in plundering their brethren, acompulsion not practiced among prisoners o fwar except among pirates, the outlaws an denemies of human society . As they are notonly making every preparation to crush us ,which the internal strength of the nation an dits alliances with foreign powers afford them,but are using every art to draw the savageIndians upon our frontiers, and are even en-couraging insurrection among our slaves, man yof whom are now actually in arms against us.And as the King of G . B . by a long series ofoppressive acts has proved himself the tyran tinstead of the protector of his people . We, therepresentatives of the Colony of Virginia d odeclare, that we hold ourselves absolved of ou rallegiance to the Crown of G . B. and obligedby the eternal laws of self-preservation t opursue such measures as may conduce to th egood and happiness of the united colonies ; andas a full declaration of Independency appearsto us to be the only honourable means unde rHeaven of obtaining that happiness, and ofrestoring us again to a tranquil and prosperou ssituation ;Resolved, That our delegates in Congress, b eenjoined in the strongest and most positiv emanner to exert their ability in procuring animmediate, clear and full Declaration of In-dependency . 1

The changes made by Edmund Pendleton and certai nother delegates in the resolution conveyed to Phil-adelphia are not significant . And in that summer, n oVirginia Whig would presume to contradict suchinstructions or rewrite them to mean somethin gcontrary to what their author intended .

Thus Patrick Henry made a revolution, thoughhe did not write about one . And we would be gen-erally at a loss to know what he intended throughthat making, except for the preserved recollection sof his contemporaries and a very few documents :that is, had he not been drawn in debates over th e2

federal Constitution (1788) to reconsider thosedesigns and purposes in public, with a stenographe rat hand. In my opinion, there are few instrument smore valuable to the student of our national be-ginnings than Volume III of Jonathan Elliot's TheDebates in the Several State Conventions on th eAdoption of the Federal Constitution . 2 It is, o fcourse, true that Henry stood in opposition toadoption in Virginia. But it is noteworthy that noFederalist opponent of his masterful performancedisputes his interpretation of the history from whichhe argues. Nor do they deny him when he advance sthe prospect of certain innovations in the Americansystem as hostile to and violations of the Revolu-tionary model . It is rather their point that the Con-stitution will be a means for preserving and perfect-ing a generally agreed upon heritage .

The Henry who was a better prophet than hi santagonists is once again the subject of anothe ressay. It is sufficient for our present purposes tha the said a great deal about the Revolution in thos eheated Richmond debates, about its significancefor the men who brought it to completion—many o fwhom were present ; that they found his remarksto be unexceptionable ; and that, together with theaforementioned recollections and occasional docu-ments, they make available the original Americanpolitical precedent—a precedent from which w epresently diverge at our great peril .

Not a Revolution of Abstract TheoryWhat counts most about Henry's teaching in thos e

Richmond orations is that it discourages in ou rgeneration all attempts to subsume the Americanstruggle for independence under the general categoryof "revolutions of dogma and abstract theory" —revolutions such as have convulsed the Old Worl dperiodically since the decade of our own achievemen tof political identity . According to his son-in-law ,the eloquent Judge Spencer Roane, the matur eHenry "detested the projects of theorists and book -worms. His prejudices against statesmen of thischaracter were very strong ." 3 And these wise prej-udices did suffer from considerable provocatio nduring his thirty-five year experience of every sor tof American politician, but more, at the end of hi slife, from over the seas . Patrick Henry did not thinkwell of the rebellion they made in France . He wrote

a friend of our original ally that "her conduct ha smade it the interest of the great family of mankindto wish the downfall of her present government . "In fact, he thought so ill of it that to oppose thespread of such influence on these shores he madecommon cause with his old enemies, the Federalists .If "everything that ought to be dear to man is covert-ly but successfully assailed . . . under the patronageof French manners and principles [and] under thename of philosophy," what could an old Whig con-stitutionalist do but disapprove? 4

In recommending corrections in the FederalConstitution of 1787, Governor Henry, speakingfor the Virginia legislature, offered counsel "notfounded in speculative theory but deduced fro mprinciples which have been established by the mel-ancholy example of other nations, in differentages." 5 And even in the most "radical" performanc eof his career he declared, "I have but one lamp b ywhich my feet are guided ; and that is the lamp o fexperience ." 6 In mixing the argument from con-sequences with the appeal ad verecundium (fro mtradition), Henry is far removed from the schoo lof strict reason, from the world of the philosophe ,but at the same time, at the very heart of the orig-inal American political tradition.

Stated briefly, this commitment to historic rights ,inherited rights available at law and passed on in ahistoric continuum (organic compact), as propert yis passed from father to child, identifies Henry a san American subspecies of the English "countryWhig." True enough, he did employ the conventionallanguage of contract theory and make an occasiona lbow toward "natural rights ." But that the fundamen-tal and indefeasible rights of man could be evenpartially achieved outside the complex negotiationthat is the common fortune of a given people locatedin a given place over a number of generations did notoccur to him as a serious possibility . Nor did he by"equal liberty" mean anything like what natura lrights theory assumes : anything more elaborate thanthe necessity for self-defense and self-preservation .For Henry's "liberty" allowed him to propose on th eeve of his fourth term as governor a pluralistic reli-gious establishment for the support through law an dtaxation of Virginia 's principal denominations. 7

And, when the high-toned Edmund Randolp hduring the ratification debates spoke of the "shortwork" made of the bushwhacker Josiah Philips b yhis upcountry neighbors as proof that a federa lpower was needed to secure equal rights, Henryreplied scornfully that his friends understood theirbusiness better than any uniformitarian jurispru-dence and "beautiful legal ceremony" could guaran-tee (Elliot, p . 140) . As we know, "Fair Liberty "was all his cry . And of government he declare dthat the "security of liberty should be its direc tand only end" (Elliot, p . 45). By these injunctionshe signified nothing more complicated than a desireto see his countrymen free to be themselves and t ogenerate their own culture out of the dialectic oftheir own experience according to what he calledtheir "genius." And by that last word—"genius" —he specified an assumption, or set of assumptions,

around which we may reconstruct his view of wha tthe Revolution was all about .

According to Their GeniusEach nation has its own genius .' And history i s

the touchstone of any systematic effort toward it sidentification . In the Richmond debates Henry spok efrom little else but history—particularly from th eBritish and the English colonial record of which ou rnew republic was to be, in his understanding, a con -summation . Consider the following language andask yourself, "Can it be otherwise construed?"

When the American spirit was in its youth, th elanguage of America was different : liberty, sir ,was then the primary object . We are descendedfrom a people whose government was founde don liberty : our glorious forefathers of GreatBritain made liberty the foundation of everything. That country is become a great, mighty ,and splendid nation : not because their govern-ment is strong and energetic, but, sir, becaus eliberty is its direct end and foundation . Wedrew the spirit of liberty from our Britis hancestors: by that spirit we have triumphedover every difficulty (Elliot, pp . 53-54) .

And again :We entertained, from our earliest infancy, themost sincere regard and reverence for themother country . Our partiality extended to apredilection for her customs, habits, manners ,and laws (Elliot, p . 162) .From that noble source have we derived ou rliberty : that spirit of patriotic attachment t oone's country, that zeal for liberty, and thatenmity to tyranny, which signalized the the nchampions of liberty we inherit from ou rBritish ancestors. And I am free to own that ,if you cannot love a republican government ,you may love the British monarchy ; for, al -though the king is not sufficiently responsible ,the responsibility of his agents, and the efficien tchecks interposed by the British Constitution ,render it less dangerous than other monarchies ,or oppressive tyrannical aristocracies (Elliot ,pp. 165-166) .

Against the new and insufficiently prescriptiveConstitution he advanced over and over again, wit hthe English precedent in hand . "How are the stat erights, individual rights, and national rights, secured ?Not as in England ; for the authority quoted fro mBlackstone would, if stated right prove, in a thou-sand instances, that, if the king of England attempte dto take away the rights of individuals, the law woul dstand against him. The acts of Parliament woul dstand in his way. The bill and declaration of right swould be against him. The common law is fortifiedby the bill of rights" (Elliot, p . 513). Finally, hesummarized these objections in one sentence . Ofthe Philadelphia instrument, he maintained, "Ther eis not an English feature in it" (Elliot, p . 170) .

We are reminded of the language employed byEdmund Burke in his "Speech on Conciliation wit h

3

America" (1775) to describe his kinsmen over th esea: "The temper and character which prevail inour colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by an yhuman art . We cannot, I fear, falsify the Pedigre eof this fierce people, and persuade them that theyare not sprung from a nation in whose veins th eblood of freedom circulates . The language in whichthey would hear you tell them this tale would detec tthe disposition ; your speech would betray you ." oThe affinity in perspective on a common inherit-ance linking these two statesmen brings me to thecrux of my argument concerning Henry on revolu-tion .

Colonial Counterrevolutio nSeen in this light, what happened in the thirtee n

North American colonies between 1774 and 178 2was not so much a revolution as a counterrevolution :a struggle by the colonials to preserve a regim eboth extant and well affirmed from threats to it sfelicity issuing from other components of the tota lBritish polity . Like the architects of 1787, wh owould have (according to an apparent majority o fAmericans) established a government not checke dby the necessary and specific restrictions on it scoercive powers, it was George III, his ministers ,and their supporters who were guilty of a "radical "usurpation against the rule of interdependence forthe common good (Elliot, p . 44) . Once the prospectof military force in implementing these doctrinesbecame an ingredient in this confrontation, wa rwas bound to come . For once the sword is drawn ,nothing can answer but the sword, or so says honor— hence the language in Virginia's 1776 instruction sto the Continental Congress, the language of Henryquoted above; and hence the Declaration of Inde-pendence itself which, as we are so often urged toforget, should be read in the light of such repre-sentative Whig expressions of opinion . Men, intheir composite character as collectivities, haveinalienable rights to observe the "eternal law" o fself-preservation, to protect life, property, and hop eof a future . One people has the right to expectthis of government as much as another—in that sense ,are equal to them . And certainly, one group ofEnglishmen expects as much as any other English -men .

Inalienable Rights UsurpedBut, compulsion aside, how precisely are th e

English authorities to be taken as usurpers agains tlaw, usage, and custom? And how shall rebellio ntake on the sanction of preservation? For, in Henry' sview, as in the Declaration, "light and transientcauses" will not serve ; revolt is not an end in itself . 1 0

First of all, as part of a sequence of development sin the evolution of the English Constitution, be-ginning with the 1628 Petition of Right and, afte rroyal and parliamentary excesses, brought to apartial settlement in the 1689 Bill of Rights (Elliot ,pp. 316-337) . Yet, as Americans discovered, a furtherstep toward community under the sovereignty o flaw (charters, statutes, and unwritten prescription —all determining stations and roles) was required . Asa young lawyer, Henry had foreseen this exigency .For in the Parson's Case he had argued, "A kin gby annulling or disallowing laws of this salutar ynature, from being the father of his people de-generates into a tyrant and forfeits all right to hi ssubject 's obedience." 1 1

American colonials had developed their govern-ment within the legal context of the establishe dEnglish political forms, minus a titled nobility anda full religious hierarchy . Remove also an offendingking and only the prescriptive law remains . But(since another executive will be provided, and judge sfor their support) with additional writing down ,add specificity to forestall those old enemies, in-ference and construction. And ban the more obviou sinfringements of fiat, called under the crown "ex-pansions of the prerogative ." However, if executiveauthority, representatives, and people are, in alltheir roles and stations, determined by a clear an dlimited set of agreements and laws ; and if they com eto love that bond, their genius may then flourishand their virtue (qua public spirit, reinforced by asense of joint investment) be expected to grow . Tohow these improvements should be drawn historywas once again the key, experience followed bymeditation. In it good citizens might find "thevoice of tradition" (Elliot, p . 56) . Henry was alway sproud of his part in keeping the common law in afree Virginia, proud of the heritage it made manifest ,and also proud of his part in abstracting from thepolitical system which antedated that freedo mall prospect of future obstructions to its fruitfu loperation (Elliot, p . 446) . His constant aim was torelease what he, as a very social man, knew bette rthan any of his contemporaries—that "genius" o fthis shore, this commonwealth, of which I spok ebefore, and to which I must now return in sum-marizing Henry's social theory .To Flourish in a Climate of Liberty

Genius, as used in the eighteenth century, is animprecise term. It can mean several things, but ina political context will usually signify a qualityrooted in nature and place. As in the Latin genusloci, or resident spirit of a stream or wood, it coul dnot be known save through its activities . And thegenius of a people is likewise signified . A sparestructure or supporting institutional framework coul dencourage its revelation—or a large a priori political

4

machinery prevent that unfolding . Henry, even in1775, wanted union and had once declared, in thecontext of war, that where our foreign enemies wereconcerned he did not think of himself as a Virginian ,but as American . 12 And he seriously wished to seethe Articles of Confederation strengthened in keepingwith the genius of the entire country .

But in his view, that was an entity which touche dupon only a small portion of our common life ; andlikewise state law in the Old Dominion . Virginia hada "government suited to the genius of her people" —a government "formed by that humble genius, "a spirit which included the genius of their ancestors .And its success proved of those who formed it thatthey, "perhaps by accident, did what design coul dnot do in other parts of the world ." It is only thu sthat liberty, a condition, is the end of official govern-ment, for by its operation is genius released, and aculture permitted to develop from its roots, upwar d(Elliot, p . 161) .

Henry's antithesis of "design" and "accident"is central to his political teaching . For design is whathe perceived in the Federalist model for our Unite dStates, an "energetic" plan framed to organize an ddragoon its citizens toward the achievement of som eexternally determined end . Further, it was obviousthat such design would eventuate in the divinizatio nof the state : a condition where men live for govern-ment, not the other way around, and governmen teither for ideology or to enact some monstrousprivate will. I will not here take you through hisparticular objections to Madison's crafty composi-tion. It suffices to say that they were all directedtoward liberty and away from an extrinsic telos ,all finally productive of what we now know as theBill of Rights . His America did not exist to pursu ecertain military, economic, moral, or philosophica lobjectives . To borrow language from a group of hi smost articulate political descendants, he scorne dthe notion of a culture "poured in from the top," 1 3

whatever the rationale . Rather, his social-politica lvision was what Michael Oakeshott has called "no-mocratic" and Eric Voegelin "compact ." 1 4

Political manners, divorced from any purposeoutside of sustaining their devotees in relation t oeach other, would produce identity for a posterioridescription by the wise : grown identity, as goodhusbandry of soil makes a tree bear fruit, but doe snot plumb the mystery of that tree . 15 Not the glory,nor the power, nor the wealth which the Federalis t(as had King George) promised could be the main -spring of the republic which Henry envisaged . Norcould it be the right to live outside the societaswhich a quasi-Roman notion of normative nationa llaw might guarantee : the anti-community of atomis-tic individuals who become a "herd" (a word Henrydespised) by overdoing their effort to be the oppo-site. What was needed must come from within, fro mpersons in relation to persons, all knowing who the yare .

Silence in Interpretatio nIt should now be possible for us to understan d

why there has been something like a conspiracy o f5

silence concerning the political theory of PatrickHenry, its ancient antecedents, and its obviousrelevance to disruptions in American life today .Our scholars, most of them rationalists and neo-Federalists, had a vested interest in producing Henry' spresent reputation : that he was a simple-minde dcountry politician turned demagogue, a populis ttrimmer whose talents happened to serve his mor efar-sighted contemporaries when the Revolutionarycrisis came . That Madison was the fellow to read, an dJefferson before him—or certain selected Bosto nradicals, as reprinted under the auspices of th eHarvard University Press. In any case, Henry'srhetoric could be explained as a product of th eshifting circumstances of his private life and develop-ments in the regional economy of the districts whereHenry's will was: "omnipotent." Henry's rhetoric ,but not that of his political antagonists . To the degreethat this obfuscation has been successful and Henr yreplaced in the center of our bicentennial attention sby more speculative politicians who in some wayaugur the present dispensation of things, to tha textent we have been deprived of the political para-digm which the occasion requires us to seek .

We should not feel free to forget that the Revolu-tion was made against power, uninformed of theconditions which it administered and untouched b ythe consequences of that remote administration ,particularly in view of what we have learned o fpower since. Nor should we ignore the evidence tha tthere was a republicanism abroad in the land whic howed more to Lord Coke and Roman history thanto Mr. Locke. Henry's politics as here reconstructe dwill, I hope, help prevent such mistakes .

But to practice a more complete piety and to makethe precedent here considered into a living force ,more than theoretical study is required . The bestway to know from the inside the kind of Americ aPatrick Henry hoped to leave us intact is to plung esubmissively into state and county histories, remi-niscences, and letters—into the bygone world ofcountry and village and town as managed by ordinar ycitizens according to the mos majorum and their ownparticular lights . From such studies and from theevidence of American literature, as opposed to themore conventional searchings after nuance andrefinement in the record of political thought, wecan approach that interior knowledge : for there i stheory in the private history of free American sliving privately in communities, within the ambit o ffamily and friends : living under the eye of God ou tof the memory of their kind . Theory is evident forsuch students as are prepared to begin in the prope rplaces and to seek out the proper contemporar yguides in framing language for the translation ofactions into thought—theory usually better than th edisembodied kind .

Patrick Henry, as available in Elliot and in hi sother scattered remains, when framed by the earl yhistory of Virginia and the upper South, is such aguide. For, as we all recognize, his wisdom wa slongest preserved in its place of origin and from th eperspective of our day seems almost inseparable fromtwo hundred years of Southern testimony in "opposi-

tion." Yet it is not, nor was it ever, meant for localconsumption alone—not just for the electors o fHanover, Louisa, Goochland, Prince Edward, andthe other counties west of Richmond or on the"south-side" of the James . Assuming (as does mypresence here) that Henry's America of the Revolu-tion has a lesson for us all, Andrew Lytle, in hi srecently published A Wake for the Living, has re-covered its image in a condensed and dramaticre-creation . Most of what is argued here from Henryis implicit in Lytle's family chronicle, and especiallythe separation of the public and private spheres, thehorror of a totally politicized world . Toward thebook's end, Lytle recalls the incident of a youngcolonel who asked of Robert E . Lee what the Generalcould say to history in defense of his comman ddecisions . Out of a world view identical with Henry's ,Lee replied, "I will take the responsibility ." 1 6

The authority for such decisions comes only fro mthe virtue of unequal men unequally accountable t oGod, respectful of the prescription, guided b ymanners, and free through that combination t oexercise responsible choice : only from the leader ofa people whose genius remains intact because tha t"jewel . . . the public liberty" has been guarde dwith "jealous attention" (Elliot, p . 45) . If weconsider the example of Patrick Henry with suchdistinctions in mind, we will have some idea of ho wfar from our beginnings we have come—and som eidea of the hard way back .

Footnotes1 Norine Dickson Campbell, Patrick Henry : Patrio tand Statesman (New York: Devin-Adair, 1969) ,p . 206 .

2Jonathan Elliot, editor, The Debates in the Severa lState Conventions on the Adoption of the Federa lConstitution as Recommended by the General Con-vention at Philadelphia in 1787 (New York : BurtFranklin, n .d.), 5 volumes . A reprint of the 1888edition, cited hereafter within the text .

3Robert Douthat Meade, Patrick Henry : Practica lRevolutionary (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1969) ,p . 265 .

4Campbell, op. cit. , p. 407 .

5 Meade, op. cit., p . 377 .6aampbell, op . cit., p. 129 .7Meade, op. cit., p . 268 .

8Henry uses the word throughout the debates wit hunmistakable iteration .

9Quoted in Campbell, op . cit., p. 133 .10Meade, op. cit., p. 70. Henry recommended againstattempting to draw Canada into the Revolutio nbecause he believed that "men will never revol tagainst their ancient rulers while they enjoy peaceand plenty ."

11 Robert Douthat Meade, Patrick Henry: Patriotin the Making (New York: J . B. Lippincott, 1957) ,p. 133 .12Richard R. Beeman, Patrick Henry: A Biography(New York: McGraw Hill, 1974), p . 60.

13From p. xvi of the "Introduction" to I'll TakeMy Stand: The South and the Agrarian Traditio n(New York : Harper & Brothers, 1930) by Twelv eSoutherners . John Crowe Ransom, speaking fo rthe group, wrote this passage .

14Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct (Oxford :The Clarendon Press, 1975), pp . 201-203 ; EricVoegelin, The New Science of Politics (Chicago :University of Chicago Press, 1952), pp . 86-91 .

15See Alexander Bickel's The Morality of Consen t(New Haven : Yale University Press, 1975), where th eidea of procedure as the identifying bond of th eRepublic is instructively developed .16Andrew Lytle, A Wake for the Living (New York :Crown Publishers, 1975) .

Hillsdale College is marked by its strong independenc eand its emphasis on academic excellence . It holds that th etraditional values of Western civilization, especially includin gthe free society of responsible individuals, are worthy o fdefense . In maintaining these values, the college has remaine dindependent throughout its 131 years, neither soliciting no raccepting government funding for its operations .

The opinions expressed in IMPRIMIS may be, but are not necessarily, the views of the Center for Constructive Alternatives or Hillsdale College .

Copyrights' 1976 by Hillsdale College . Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided customary credit is given .