the Supreme Court of Appeals of
Virginia; Mr. John Lewis, an eminent lawyer, and John Randolph,
afterward knighted and as Sir John Randolph, the king's Attorney General
for Virginia. Henry was twenty-four when admitted to the bar, and for
three years did nothing.

Under the law of Virginia the people, without regard to religious
belief, were bound to pay a tax of so many pounds of tobacco per poll
for the support of the clergy. The parson of each parish was entitled to
sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco per annum. When the price of tobacco
was low this imposition was borne not without grumbling. When short
crops or increased demand raised the price, the General Assembly of the
colony by law allowed the people the option to pay their poll-tax in
tobacco, or to commute it at the fixed price of 16_s._ and 8_d._ per
hundred. When the market price was above that the tax was paid in
currency; when it was below, in tobacco. When tobacco rose to 50_s._ per
hundred the parsons demanded tobacco for their salaries instead of
16_s._ 8_d._ per hundred. The King in council declared the Commutation
Act void, and the parsons brought suit for their salaries. The
defendants pleaded the Commutation Act in defence; to this plea the
plaintiffs demurred; and the court, as it was bound to do, gave judgment
for the plaintiff on the demurrer. The only question then left was the
_quantum_ of damages, to be assessed by a jury. The case selected for a
test was the case of the Rev. James Maury against the sheriff of Hanover
County and his sureties. It was set for trial at the December term of
the County Court of Hanover, 1763. Henry was retained for the defendant,
and made an argument so forcible, so conclusive, and so eloquent that it
has made his fame as "the greatest orator who ever lived," as Mr.
Jefferson wrote of him. He took the ground that allegiance and
protection in government are reciprocal, that the King of Great Britain
had failed to protect the people of Virginia in their rights as
Englishmen, and that therefore they owed no allegiance to him and he had
no right to declare laws made by them void, therefore his nullification
of the Commutation Act was void and of no effect. The jury found for the
plaintiff with one penny damages, and thus ended the attempt to rely
upon the power of the king to set aside laws made by Virginia for her
own government.

It was the first announcement in America of the radical revolutionary
doctrine that g