Yesterday, I visited Scotchtown, an 18th century house located in a rural area of central Virginia. Scotchtown was one of the homes of Patrick Henry (1736-1799), the celebrated American orator and statesman, who played a leading role during the War of Independence and in the debates over the ratification of the U.S. Constitution after the war. At Scotchtown, there is a small exhibit that chronicles the worldwide impact of Henry's belief in the importance of individual rights. Perhaps the most important of those rights that Henry championed was freedom of religion.
Henry's advocacy of religious freedom was clearly founded on his own experiences and those of his family. In his youth, Henry attended the local Anglican (Church of England) church, as might have been expected since Anglicanism was the official religion in colonial Virginia. Henry's uncle was even an Anglican clergyman. However, as I noted in a previous blogpost on Henry's own religious beliefs:
[Henry's] mother and sisters became attracted to the evangelical form of Christianity that emerged in the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s [in America,] with its more emotional approach to the Christian faith, in contrast with the staid respectability of Anglicanism. Henry himself frequently traveled with his mother and sisters to hear the Reverend Samuel Davies--a Presbyterian minister who was a fervent evangelical--preach.
Although Henry himself would officially remain an Anglican, perhaps due to his mother and sisters' attraction to evangelicalism (and his own admiration for Reverend Davies' eloquence), he became sympathetic to religious dissenters like the Virginia Presbyterians. Moreover, he was apparently repelled by the treatment of Baptist preachers by local authorities in Virginia during the 1760s. Henry Mayer, in his biography of Henry, A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic, gives us an example of that treatment:
In county after county, especially across Henry's Piedmont, where [itinerate Baptist preachers] found mightily responsive listeners, the authorities jailed preachers and countenanced violent reprisals against them. In June 1768 the sheriff of Spotsylvania County jailed a quartet of preachers for forty days. When an itinerant preacher named John Ireland, jailed in neighboring Culpepper, tried to preach from his cell, ruffians rode up "at a gallop" to disperse the faithful. The "poor negroes" attending were "stripped and subjected to stripes," Ireland lamented, and he was threatened with "being shut up in total darkness if ever I presumed to preach to the people again" (pp. 158-159).
In response to such outrages, Henry became "the one stalwart friend the Baptists had among Virginia politicians" (Mayr, p. 160). It is said that "Henry rode fifty miles out of his way to volunteer his services the Baptists jailed in Spotsylvania" (Mayr, p. 160). Moreover, on another occasion Henry anonymously paid the fees of Baptist preacher John Weatherford, who had been jailed in Chesterfield County for five months, so that he could be released. Henry also helped another group of religious dissenters, the Society of Friends, perhaps better known as the Quakers. According to Mayr, "Henry helped the Society of Friends with its legislative exemption from military service and earned Quaker accolades as 'a man of great moderation'." (p. 161).
In light of Henry's clear sympathy for religious dissenters, it should not, therefore, be surprising that as a member of Virginia's colonial legislature, he introduced a bill guaranteeing that "all His Majesty's Protestant subjects dissenting from the Church of England [Anglican Church], within this Dominion [of Virginia], shall have and enjoy the full and free Exercise of their religion, without Molestation or Danger of incurring any Penalty whatsoever" (as cited in Mayr, p. 165). However, unfortunately, due to some legislative maneuvering, the bill was not adopted at that time. Nevertheless, only four years later, he was able to achieve his goal of guaranteeing religious liberty in Virginia. In the late spring of 1776, delegates from around Virginia met in the then capital of Williamsburg to draft a bill of rights and a constitution for the former colony, which was now independent from Great Britain. In concert with a young delegate from Orange County named James Madison, Henry introduced an amendment to the proposed bill of rights. The original text of the bill of rights would have only guaranteed tolerance for religious dissenters in Virginia. In contrast, Henry's amendment would have guaranteed religious freedom to all. In the end, the delegates agreed to revise the bill of rights to proclaim that "all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience."
This guarantee of "the free exercise of religion" contained in what became known as the Virginia Declaration of Rights would have a huge impact, far beyond Virginia. It arguably was the basis for the guarantee of religious freedom included in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution some twenty years later. Moreover, it may have also helped to inspire the notion that religious liberty is a universal human right. And all of this was at least in part due to Patrick Henry.
Image of bronze statue of Patrick Henry by William Sievers from Wikimedia Commons
Henry's advocacy of religious freedom was clearly founded on his own experiences and those of his family. In his youth, Henry attended the local Anglican (Church of England) church, as might have been expected since Anglicanism was the official religion in colonial Virginia. Henry's uncle was even an Anglican clergyman. However, as I noted in a previous blogpost on Henry's own religious beliefs:
[Henry's] mother and sisters became attracted to the evangelical form of Christianity that emerged in the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s [in America,] with its more emotional approach to the Christian faith, in contrast with the staid respectability of Anglicanism. Henry himself frequently traveled with his mother and sisters to hear the Reverend Samuel Davies--a Presbyterian minister who was a fervent evangelical--preach.
Although Henry himself would officially remain an Anglican, perhaps due to his mother and sisters' attraction to evangelicalism (and his own admiration for Reverend Davies' eloquence), he became sympathetic to religious dissenters like the Virginia Presbyterians. Moreover, he was apparently repelled by the treatment of Baptist preachers by local authorities in Virginia during the 1760s. Henry Mayer, in his biography of Henry, A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic, gives us an example of that treatment:
In county after county, especially across Henry's Piedmont, where [itinerate Baptist preachers] found mightily responsive listeners, the authorities jailed preachers and countenanced violent reprisals against them. In June 1768 the sheriff of Spotsylvania County jailed a quartet of preachers for forty days. When an itinerant preacher named John Ireland, jailed in neighboring Culpepper, tried to preach from his cell, ruffians rode up "at a gallop" to disperse the faithful. The "poor negroes" attending were "stripped and subjected to stripes," Ireland lamented, and he was threatened with "being shut up in total darkness if ever I presumed to preach to the people again" (pp. 158-159).
In response to such outrages, Henry became "the one stalwart friend the Baptists had among Virginia politicians" (Mayr, p. 160). It is said that "Henry rode fifty miles out of his way to volunteer his services the Baptists jailed in Spotsylvania" (Mayr, p. 160). Moreover, on another occasion Henry anonymously paid the fees of Baptist preacher John Weatherford, who had been jailed in Chesterfield County for five months, so that he could be released. Henry also helped another group of religious dissenters, the Society of Friends, perhaps better known as the Quakers. According to Mayr, "Henry helped the Society of Friends with its legislative exemption from military service and earned Quaker accolades as 'a man of great moderation'." (p. 161).
In light of Henry's clear sympathy for religious dissenters, it should not, therefore, be surprising that as a member of Virginia's colonial legislature, he introduced a bill guaranteeing that "all His Majesty's Protestant subjects dissenting from the Church of England [Anglican Church], within this Dominion [of Virginia], shall have and enjoy the full and free Exercise of their religion, without Molestation or Danger of incurring any Penalty whatsoever" (as cited in Mayr, p. 165). However, unfortunately, due to some legislative maneuvering, the bill was not adopted at that time. Nevertheless, only four years later, he was able to achieve his goal of guaranteeing religious liberty in Virginia. In the late spring of 1776, delegates from around Virginia met in the then capital of Williamsburg to draft a bill of rights and a constitution for the former colony, which was now independent from Great Britain. In concert with a young delegate from Orange County named James Madison, Henry introduced an amendment to the proposed bill of rights. The original text of the bill of rights would have only guaranteed tolerance for religious dissenters in Virginia. In contrast, Henry's amendment would have guaranteed religious freedom to all. In the end, the delegates agreed to revise the bill of rights to proclaim that "all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience."
This guarantee of "the free exercise of religion" contained in what became known as the Virginia Declaration of Rights would have a huge impact, far beyond Virginia. It arguably was the basis for the guarantee of religious freedom included in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution some twenty years later. Moreover, it may have also helped to inspire the notion that religious liberty is a universal human right. And all of this was at least in part due to Patrick Henry.
Image of bronze statue of Patrick Henry by William Sievers from Wikimedia Commons
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