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Illustrated Episode · Volume III, chapter 21 · 29 May 1765

Caesar had his Brutus

In a wood-paneled hall a young man in a dark coat stands among benches of wigged gentlemen, one arm stretched toward a canopied chair where an older man in a grey wig has risen, hand flung out, as the whole room turns to watch.
Williamsburg, May 1765. Patrick Henry warns the House of Burgesses that Caesar had his Brutus and Charles the First his Cromwell, and Speaker John Robinson cries treason. Henry backs down, yet his Virginia Resolves spread like wildfire through the colonies. Rothbard says the Stamp Act could only be beaten in the streets. Chapter 21 of Conceived in Liberty.

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Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0.

What happened

By the third week of May 1765 only about a third of Virginia's burgesses were still in Williamsburg. The Stamp Act had passed in March, nobody in the House knew what to do about it, and the colony seemed ready to submit. Then a new member, the brilliant young lawyer Patrick Henry, who had been seated on May 20, wrote five resolutions in nine days. The older leaders, Speaker John Robinson, Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland and Edmund Pendleton among them, fought him. In the debate a French traveler who had just walked in wrote that Henry said Tarquin and Caesar had each had a Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and that some good American would stand up for his country. The Speaker rose and called it treason. Henry apologized, and the House let him. Thomas Jefferson, then a law student listening at the door, said Henry spoke "as Homer wrote." The fifth resolve passed by one vote, 20 to 19. Henry went home, and the next day his opponents struck it from the record. It did not matter: the newspapers of the other colonies printed all seven Resolves as if passed. Rothbard says the tax could not be beaten in the assemblies, only in the streets, and this was the signal that sent people there.

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. III, ch. 21, 'Patrick Henry Intervenes', pp. 863-865. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. Journal of a French Traveller in the Colonies, 1765, American Historical Review 26 (1920-21), the entry on the Williamsburg debate, as quoted in the article below; the original was not opened (the Library of Congress scan returned an error). Primary source
  3. 'Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death": Granddaddy of Revolution Mythologies', Journal of the American Revolution (July 2015; read 2026-09-30), quoting the French traveller's account of the May 1765 speech. Secondary source
  4. 'Dispatch from 1765: Stamp Act protest prompts House speaker to accuse new legislator Patrick Henry of treason', Cardinal News (13 February 2024; read 2026-09-30): the speech on 29 May 1765, Jefferson's recollections, Henry 'roughly dressed'. Secondary source
  5. Wikipedia, 'Virginia Resolves' (read 2026-09-30): the resolves and Henry's speech on 29 May 1765; Speaker Robinson's cry of 'Treason!'; the attempt to strike the resolves on 30 May; Randolph's remark to Jefferson. Secondary source
  6. Encyclopedia Virginia, 'Speaker's Chair' (black walnut; the canopied design of monarchs' thrones and the Commons chair; raised on at least two steps; the royal arms), read through a search summary on 2026-09-30. Secondary source
  7. Colonial Williamsburg, the Hall of the House of Burgesses in the Capitol (the original Speaker's chair the focal point of the main apse; a semicircle of benches along the walls), read through a search summary on 2026-09-30. Secondary source
  8. Colonial Virginia Portraits, 'Speaker John Robinson (1704-1766)': John Wollaston, c. 1755-58 (a grey wig and a dark brown jacket), read through a search summary on 2026-09-30. Secondary source