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Patrick Henry's Speech During The Revolutionary War

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less than a month before the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Patrick Henry addressed the house of Burgesses in Richmond, Virginia. He gave a speech that has been remembered popularly as the Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech. Although Henry’s discourse was not recorded at the time partially because Henry delivered it great, Henry’s biographer, William Wirt, later gathered testimony from people who had heard him speak. Through their accounts, Wirt reconstructed what Henry spoke that day. The motivation behind the speech was to incite the determination of the Virginia House members to raise a militia, or voluntary army that would fight against the British army. It should be noted that more modern historians have challenged the authenticity

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