Patrick Henry’s Last Stand: Lessons on Loyalty, Opposition, and the Survival of Democracy

Hyper-partisanship in the 1790s drove the still-new United States to the brink of Civil War. Thomas Jefferson warned that the Federalists’ Sedition Act initiated a “reign of witches” and asked states to “nullify” federal laws. Shocked by the possibilities of state-federal conflict and the possibility of secession, George Washington begged Patrick Henry to come out of retirement to oppose Jefferson’s radical states’ rights agenda. Henry, the great anti-federalist who had opposed ratification of the Constitution as creating a government too powerful and distant from the people, entered his final political campaign to defend the young nation and the Constitution that he had opposed. In the process, Henry explained the role of a “loyal opposition,” offering a lesson for our time. This story — recounted in Dr. Ragosta’s book, For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry’s Final Political Battle — is the story about how a democracy must work if…