(Samuel) Davies was a Presbyterian pastor in Hanover, Va., close by where Henry’s family lived. When Henry was a teenager his mother became involved with Davies’ church…He remembered those scenes of Davies’ revival preaching: very learned but also very emotional. And later on in his career, Henry’s critics would say that Henry spoke like an evangelical minister.

Less than a year to go until the first presidential election in which Tea Party activists, who speak of the ideals of the American Revolution, will play a large role—but what were those ideals? Basic Books has just published Thomas Kidd’s Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots, a biography of the man known as “the voice of the American revolution.” Here are edited excerpts from an interview with Kidd, a history professor at Baylor University.

Patrick Henry was homeschooled? Henry was born in 1736, when there was almost no educational infrastructure in Virginia, except in the major towns. His father largely schooled him at home. This mainly meant reading and history and classics: He had deep exposure to the Christian tradition, to Greek and Roman antiquity, to the heroes of the ancient past and the Reformation. This stuck with him through his career.

How did pastor Samuel Davies influence Henry? Davies was a Presbyterian pastor in Hanover, Va., close by where Henry’s family lived. When Henry was a teenager his mother became involved with Davies’ church. She had Patrick repeat back the Scripture passage and the essence of the sermon on the horse ride home. He remembered those scenes of Davies’ revival preaching: very learned but also very emotional. And later on in his career, Henry’s critics would say that Henry spoke like an evangelical minister.

Did theological rebellion against the State church clear the path for political and economic rebellion? The Great Awakening was, among other things, the first great colonial uprising against State power. To question the established ministers’ authority was to attack the State’s authority over your conscience and religious practice. Henry, because of his schooling and Christian convictions, had a deep suspicion about political power itself: He thought a powerful government will almost inevitably become tyrannical, because of the nature of man.

Henry was quick to see problems arising in 1765. Henry had just been elected to the colonial legislature in Virginia when news of the Stamp Act came. It didn’t bother him that he was a freshman legislator: He jumped right in, took everything to its logical conclusion, and said, “This is the rise of tyranny.”

And 10 years later … Everything came to a head in 1775. The British army had an increasingly menacing presence, particularly in Massachusetts. Henry urged Virginians to prepare for conflict. Others said, “No, we’ve got to continue to pursue a reconciliation.” Henry said they’d been doing that for 10 years and getting nowhere. At the end of the speech he said, ‘I know not what others may do, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!'”

When the war began, why did Virginians make Henry their military commander?

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