My thanks to Constantine Gutzman for clarifying Henry's remark -- I am
indebted.  It was laziness on my part to call up the example -- it does
SOUND like a polar opposite from the Randolph quotation -- but of course
it is no reflection of Henry's allegiances, but of the constitutional
dilemma of the early 1770s.  Anyhow, I stand by my main point that
antebellum Americans did not see holding a patriotic allegiance to their
native states as contradictory to their loyalty as Americans -- indeed,
for many state identity was the lens through which they saw themselves as
Americans.

David Kiracofe
College of Charleston

On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 18:00:53 -0400 Constantine Gutzman wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Kiracofe" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 1:58 PM
> Subject: Re: Hampton (Virginia) National Cemetary: 757.723.7104
>
>
> > In regard to the recent discussions of state versus national loyalties,
> > the truth seems to lie somewhere between the two poles of "my country is
> > Virginia" (Randolph of Roanoke) and "I am not a Virginian but an
> > American" (Patrick Henry -- please excuse the rough paraphrasing).
>
> One must be careful in order to interpret Henry's famous statement
> accurately.  Henry's statement here represented one side in a debate
> within
> Virginia, that over the question what George III's constructive abdication
> as King of Virginia legally meant.  Some people, such as Thomas
> Jefferson ,
> insisted that the king's abdication merely opened up the possibility of
> naming a new governor; for them, there was no state of nature.
> Others, like
> Henry (and, unless memory fails, John Page -- it has been a while since I
> read this material), said that since every officeholder in Virginia, from
> the county courts to the House of Burgesses, held his office
> mediately from
> the king, the end of the House of Hanover in Virginia meant that no
> officer
> in Virginia held legitimate governmental power anymore.  Virginia, as
> Henry
> understood the matter, rested in a perfect Lockean state of nature, along
> with the other rebellious colonies.
>
> Seemingly, most Virginians opted for Jefferson's argument:  The colonial
> government continued to operate, insofar as it could, until the
> adoption of
> the May Convention's 1776 Virginia Constitution.  It was much easier
> simply
> to allow the militia, the county courts, etc., to continue to operate
> as if
> nothing had happened than it would have been to assume there was no law of
> any kind in Virginia until a representative body could be convened to
> create
> new, republican institutions.  Henry's statement came in the context
> of his
> insistence in the same speech that there was no law anymore in (formerly)
> British North America (Canada excepted), so there were no longer any
> boundaries among the colonies.  (Those boundaries, too, had all been drawn
> by the kings -- or, in a couple of cases, by Cromwell's Parliament.)
> Henry
> found himself in the awkward situation of being an American, not a
> Virginian, at a particular moment, but that was a diagnosis based on his
> political theory, not a statement reflecting the relative strengths of his
> affections.
>
> Constantine Gutzman
> Department of History
> Western Connecticut State University
>
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David Kiracofe

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