SUMMARY
Patrick Henry was a lawyer, orator, and statesman whose career spanned the founding of the United States. An early critic of British authority and leader in the movement toward independence, Henry dedicated most of his life to Virginia politics. He served as a member of the House of Burgesses (1765–1774), as the first governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia (1776–1779), as a member of the House of Delegates (1779–1784; 1788–1791), and again as governor (1784–1786). He was a founding member of the Virginia Committee of Correspondence (1773) and a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses (1774–1776). He also attended the Virginia Conventions of 1774, March 1775, July–August 1775, May 1776, and 1788. He is best remembered, however, for the speech he delivered during the Virginia Convention of 1775 that famously ended with the words, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” Henry’s Virginia contemporaries recognized him as “the man who gave the