have only the testimony of contemporaries as to the effect which the
oration produced. The fiery utterances of Adams, Otis, and Quincy were
either not reported at all or very imperfectly reported, so that
posterity can judge of them only at second-hand. Patrick Henry has
fared better, many of his orations being preserved in substance, if not
in the letter, in Wirt's biography. Of these the most famous was the
defiant speech in the Convention of Delegates, March 28, 1775, throwing
down the gauge of battle to the British ministry. The ringing
sentences of this challenge are still declaimed by school-boys, and
many of them remain as familiar as household words. "I have but one
lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.
I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. . . .
Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. . . . 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 as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" The
eloquence of Patrick Henry was fervid rather than weighty or rich. But
if such specimens of the oratory of the American patriots as have come
down to us fail to account for the wonderful impression that their
words are said to have produced upon their fellow-countrymen, we should
remember that they are at a disadvantage when read instead of heard.
The imagination should supply all those accessories which gave them
vitality when first pronounced--the living presence and voice of the
speaker; the listening Senate; the grave excitement of the hour and of
the impending conflict. The wordiness and exaggeration; the highly
Latinized diction; the rhapsodies about freedom which hundreds of
Fourth-of-July addresses have since turned into platitudes--all these
coming hot from the lips of men whose actions in the field confirmed
the earnestness of their speech--were effective in the crisis and for
the purpose to which they were addressed.