Select the correct text In the pdssdge Which
the American liberty or death" speech at the Second Virginia Convention in 1775 emphasizes
sentence in this excerpt from Patrick Henry's famous '
colonists' efforts to avoid war?
Speech to the
Second Virginia Convention
by Patrick Henry (excerpt)
avert the storm which is now coming on.
We have petitioned;
Let us not, beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of done to insult; our supplications have been
the ministry and
Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and
foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
have been
disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the be free-if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we
reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to
we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and
which we have pledged ourselves never to
5O long contending-if
abandon until
must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all
the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained-we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we
that is left us!