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Articles of Confederation: Patrick Henry

    Articles of Confederation: Patrick Henry

      And now for something completely different…

      History is chock-full of people who criticized the Articles of Confederation. To Patrick Henry, they were right as rain. A Virginian orator who famously declared the metal-as-*%$# catchphrase "give me liberty or give me death," Henry was more scared of powerful government than a smalltime criminal encountering Batman for the first time.

      Henry supported keeping the Articles of Confederation in place while other patriots moved toward the Constitution in the late 1780s. During the Constitutional debates, he asked "Who authorized them [the framers] to speak the language of We, the people, instead of, We, the states?"

      Even though he lost out in the debates, and the Federalists eventually convinced enough Anti-Federalists to support the Constitution, Henry stuck to his guns.