The 240th Anniversary of 'Liberty or Death!'

The 240th Anniversary of 'Liberty or Death!'


240 years ago on March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry famously addressed the Virginia Convention:

“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

Henry’s passionate declaration for independence from Britain is widely acknowledged as the catalyst for the convention’s decision to deliver Virginian troops to help fight the Revolutionary War.

“Liberty or death!” became the rallying cry throughout the colonies. Not all, but enough of the founding generation cared enough to risk their lives fighting the War for Independence. To them, it indeed amounted to a choice between liberty or death.

Much has changed since. Today, most Americans clearly care for many things other than liberty. If this were not true, Americans would by now have thrown off the chains of the Federal Reserve. Likewise for the fear-mongered, liberty-suppressing “wars” on drugs, terror, poverty, etc., and the host of other policies, programs, agencies, bureaucracies, and departments comprising the unsustainable American welfare/warfare state. “Fear is the passion of slaves” said Henry. By and large then, are Americans not slaves? Are Americans not afraid of liberty itself?

“When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.” By 1775, the trend was running away from liberty. Henry’s generation helped slow it, if only temporarily. How do Britain’s punitive “Intolerable Acts” (or “Coercive Acts”), imposed upon the colonies – the final straw of-sorts before revolution – stack up to today’s abuses against Americans by their federal government? The lying, the spying, the inflation, the taxes, the regulations, the wars, the groping by the TSA at airports, the domestic militarization, the multitudinous assaults on civil liberties and the pervasive disdain and utter disrespect for private property and voluntary economic transactions? If alive today Henry would be the first to thunder “Liberty or death!”

“I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.” If Henry is correct, then something in the near-future, as in early 1775, has to give, no?

Henry is correct. He was guided by knowledge of the past – by experience: “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.” Here, Diogenes the Cynic is evoked. He was banished from Sinope for debasing the currency, but found a redemption-of-sorts in part by carrying a lamp in broad daylight, claiming to be searching for an honest man. Yes, Henry’s wisdom flowed from knowledge and experience. The more free the society, the more honest the society. Most Americans have access to the whole of recorded history at their fingertips – literally. Does not history show that “Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship” as Henry asserted?

This is the “Golden Thread” of truth: to be realized and sustained, peace and prosperity necessarily require perfect freedom. Princess Ariadne gave Theseus the Golden Thread to unravel as he disappeared into the labyrinth, so he could find his way back after slaying the Minotaur. Have Americans lost their handle on the Golden Thread? The Minotaur devoured sacrificial Athenians for sustenance. Do Americans realize that today’s Minotaur is their own government? Most do not. If more did, the government would be held accountable. The Minotaur would be starved, if not slayed. There would be more peace and prosperity, because there would be more freedom.

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” Here, Henry again struck a timeless truth. It rings especially true today, the 5th anniversary of we-have-to-pass-it-to-see-what’s-in-it Obamacare, and one week after the Obama administration exempted the executive office from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) records requests. The exemption announcement cynically marked the beginning of “Sunshine Week” – a week-long media and watchdog advocacy effort for greater government transparency. According to The Associated Press this year’s Sunshine Week revealed that the administration has set a record for censoring and denying access to government files. This comes just weeks after the FCC’s “passing” of Net Neutrality, which essentially amounts to the federal government’s takeover of the internet. In a sense, this grants the government control over “the whole of recorded history” currently at Americans' fingertips.

On this day, March 23, 2015, remember Patrick Henry. Don’t lose hold of the Golden Thread. Henry’s words and actions – his perfect freedom – were seen as treasonous. “If this be treason, make the most of it” he said.

Someday perhaps sooner than later, your words and actions – your perfect freedom – may also be seen as treasonous. If so will you, like Henry, make the most of it?

By Jason Peirce