Give Me Liberty

Patrick Henry (1736-1799) was an American lawyer, planter and politician, one of the most celebrated orators of the Revolution. This speech, usually known by its closing words, was delivered on 23 March 1775 at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. It is credited with having persuaded the Second Virginia Convention to pass a resolution putting the colony in a state of defence, and the audience is said to have included Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

The text we have today was not published in his lifetime. It was reconstructed many years later from the memories of those who heard it, which means that the exact words are partly the work of a biographer. Historians still debate how closely the surviving version matches what was said that day. What is clear is the impact of the speech: its balance, its repeated questions and its call to action have made it a standard example of persuasive public speaking.

The recording is a single track that lasts about twelve minutes, read by Mark F. Smith, a LibriVox volunteer.

Why listen today? The speech is a concise lesson in rhetoric and in the language of liberty, and it also offers a view of the debates that preceded the American Revolution. Short, vivid and historically important, it is an easy first step into the political speech of the period. Because it is so short, the speech makes an excellent starting point for a conversation about persuasion. Listeners can ask what techniques the speaker uses, where he raises the emotional temperature and how he leads his audience from caution to resolve, and then compare his methods with the speeches of our own time.