Patrick Henry — lawyer, statesman, and Federalists Revolutionary Leader — was born on May 29, 1736 at Studley in Hanover County, Virginia. His father, John Henry, emigrated from Scotland to Virginia in the 1720’s. While in Scotland he attended King’s College thus he was well educated. His mother, Sarah Winston Syme was a wealthy widow from a prominent Virginia gentry family. In his early years, Patrick Henry attended some local schools, but was educated by his father at home for majority of his education. He struggled to find a profession; beginning in the field of business, he failed, then as a planter, he again failed. He decided to give business a try once more, but he remained unsuccessful. Finally, at the age of twenty four, he began to study law. Henry gave himself a name with a case known as the Parson’s case. In this case, Henry criticized the King of England, proclaiming …show more content…
On May 1765, Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and in his time he served in Virginia House of Burgesses; he was a member of the Virginia committee of Correspondence, a delegate to the Virginia Convention, and a delegate to the Virginia Constitution Ratification Convention.
Henry was an outspoken critic of the United States Constitution. He feared that because the Constitution was lacking in an outlined Bill of Rights, the country would devolve into a monarchy. He stressed that an overly centralized government could limit the basic rights of the people, thus he argued for a government where the power would lay in the hands of the states In 1788, at the Virginia convention where Henry served as a representative, he voted against the ratification of the Constitution, and delivered the infamous speech known as “Speech against the U.S. Constitution at the Virginia Ratifying Convention”. In his speech, he argues that the Constitution is incompatible with republicanism in that it doesn’t support the