Quote

I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery.

Patrick Henry

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Patrick Henry
Age: 63 †
Born: 1736
Born: May 29
Died: 1799
Died: June 6
Governor Of Virginia
Lawyer
Politician
Slaveholder
Hanover County
Virginia
Henry
Everything
Pity
Lamentable
Come
Unhappy
Abhorrence
Believe
Slavery
Transmit
Time
Slave
Descendants
Evil
Abolish
Opportunity
Slaves
Happens
Offered
Together
Improve

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It is the business of a virtuous clergyman to censure vice in every appearance of it.
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I know not what others may choose but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death.
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Suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bounds. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.
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Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.
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The great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible.
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Were my soul trembling on the wing of eternity, were this hand freezing to death, were my voice choking with the last struggle, I would still, with the last gasp of that voice, implore you to remember the truth: God has given America to be free.
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They tell us, sir, that we are weak unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?
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Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?
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The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery
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....I am sure that the dangers of this system (the Federal Constitution) are real, when those who have no similar interest with the people of this country (the South) are to legislate for us - when our dearest rights are to be left, in the hands of those, whose advantage it will be to infringe them.
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He that hath a blind conscience which sees nothing, a dead conscience which feels nothing, and a dumb conscience which says nothing, is in as miserable a condition as a man can be on this side of hell.
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When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.
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The Bible is worth all the other books which have ever been printed.
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The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
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I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.
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The eternal difference between right and wrong does not fluctuate, it is immutable.
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This house protected by an armed citizen. There is absolutely nothing here worth dying for.
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The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
Patrick Henry
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Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third — ['Treason!' cried the Speaker] — may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.
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I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion.
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