Free Speech Week: The speech that ignited a revolution — and still speaks to us today

A Richmond story, a Virginia legacy, and the American ethos

Richmond is my home city. My family has lived in Virginia for generations, and our roots stretch back hundreds of years through the same hills, waterways, hunting fields, and small towns where the American idea of liberty first took hold. Not far from my family’s home, on March 23, 1775, delegates from across Virginia gathered at St. John’s Church in Richmond, then a modest brick building atop Church Hill. The colony of Virginia was divided. After years of petitions and protests, British troops occupied Boston, Parliament had closed its port, and royal governors were cracking down on dissent. Notwithstanding, many Virginians still hoped for reconciliation with King George III. After all, Charles II fondly dubbed Virginia “The Old Dominion” because of its loyalty to the Crown.

Into that tense chamber stepped a man who stood before his peers and forever changed the course of history. That man was Patrick Henry, a lawyer and delegate from Hanover County known for his fiery and entrancing oratory. He had seen the creeping hand of imperial power, and he understood what it meant when government no longer respected the limits of its authority. Speaking last in the Second Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry rose to argue to a divided assembly that the time for compromise had ended. Britain had ignored every petition, rebuffed every plea, and sent fleets and armies to enforce submission.

Henry’s words transformed that moment into a turning point for freedom itself. “I know not what course others may take,” he thundered, “but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

The courage to speak truth

Henry’s speech was not mere rhetoric. It was a structured moral argument grounded in reason, self-defense, and natural rights. Drawing on Enlightenment ideas familiar to fellow Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (and that would soon shape our Constitution), Henry declared that liberty was not a favor granted by kings or parliaments – it was a God-given right, inherent to all human beings. “The war is actually begun,” he warned, invoking moral duty as well as prudence. “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!”

Eyewitnesses recalled that delegates sat spellbound. Some openly wept. Others shouted, “To arms!” Within weeks, Virginia began mobilizing militias, and the other colonies soon followed. The speech became known as “the shot heard ‘round the world,” as it helped launch a revolution of ideas long before Lexington and Concord saw musket fire.

That day at St. John’s, the open rebellion was cemented.

Virginia: Birthplace of liberty and conscience

The legacy of the March 23 speech still lives in Richmond; a city layered with history and the spirit of perseverance. From Patrick Henry’s cry for liberty to James Madison’s defense of religious freedom a decade later, Virginia became the proving ground for what would become the Bill of Rights.

Henry and Madison disagreed sharply over the Constitution’s structure. Henry feared a strong central government; Madison believed safeguards could be written into law. Nonetheless, both men shared an unshakable conviction: liberty requires vigilance, and government must remain the servant, never the master, of a free people.

That principle animates the work we do at CEI today. The battlegrounds have changed from royal decrees to regulatory overreach, but the stakes are no less profound. The freedom to speak, to innovate, and to challenge authority remains the foundation of every other freedom we hold dear.

The modern struggle for free expression

Two and a half centuries after Henry spoke in Richmond, the defense of liberty has taken on new forms. Governments no longer silence critics with muskets, but through regulation, bureaucracy, and compulsion. Whether it is speech restrictions disguised as “content moderation” or disclosure mandates that compel individuals and companies to say what government wants said, the danger is the same: the slow substitution of permission for freedom.

Free speech is not a partisan issue. It is the precondition for self-government. As Patrick Henry knew, to live without the liberty to think and speak freely is to live in quiet submission.

That is why CEI continues to challenge unconstitutional agency actions, defend private enterprise from compelled speech, and fight for the principle that liberty belongs to individuals, not institutions.