The true meaning of 'give me liberty'

ALMOST 250 YEARS AGO, FOUR weeks before the battles of Lexington and Concord, Patrick Henry rose in St. John's Church in Richmond, Va., to urge Americans to arm for a war that he saw as inevitable. He famously concluded his call to arms: "Give me liberty, or give me death."

- JOHN RAGOSTA

Patriots embraced the refrain, and militia members sewed it into their shirts. Since then, his words have echoed through the centuries. In 1845, Frederick Douglass referenced Henry when he wrote of the enslaved battling for freedom. In 1989, when thousands gathered for liberty in Tiananmen Square, his words were invoked. But they have also been embraced by some as a radical call for opposition to almost any government action. In 2020, signs attacking health regulations demanded, rather confusedly, "Give me liberty or give me COVID-19!" Protesters on Jan. 6, 2021, quoted Henry.

His famous phrase has appeared on everything from AR-15 dust covers to a Tea Party manifesto.

Rather than a call for democratic freedom, Henry's mantra has become a radical screed. But wrapping antigovernment campaigns in Henry's words demonstrates a fundamental historical misunderstanding.