overnment is a matter of compact with the people, and
when the former breaks the agreement, the latter are absolved from
obedience to it.

The next year Henry removed to Louisa County and was employed by
Dandridge in the contested election case of Dandridge _v._ Littlepage
before the House of Burgesses for a seat in that body. When the Stamp
Act passed in 1765, Mr. William Johnson, member of the House of
Burgesses for Louisa County, resigned his place to make way for Henry,
who was elected to fill the vacancy.

This body consisted of some of the ablest and most illustrious Americans
who ever lived. George Washington, Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland,
Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee were all members, and
Henry at the first session won a place in the front rank among them. In
May, 1765, he introduced a series of resolutions, reiterating and
enlarging the propositions of the parson's case, and declaring that the
people of Virginia are entitled to all the rights of British subjects,
and that they alone, through their General Assembly, "have the sole
right and power to lay taxes and impositions on this colony," and that
any attempt by any other authority "has a manifest tendency to destroy
British as well as American freedom." They were opposed by the old
members, but the eloquent logic of Henry, backed by Johnston, a member
from Fairfax, carried them by a close vote, the last one by a majority
of one.

In this debate, Henry in a passion of eloquence exclaimed, "Caesar had
his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George III.----"
"Treason," cried the Speaker and the House----"may profit by their
example. If this be treason, make the most of it."

The next day, the House in a panic, reconsidered, rejected, and expunged
from the _Journal_ the last resolution, which asserted the sole right
of taxation in Virginia, and denied it to Parliament.

Henry continued a member of the House of Burgesses from Louisa County
until the close of the Revolution. He led Virginia in resistance to the
tax on tea, and in organizing armed resistance to the Mother Country by
all the colonies. He was among the first of the Americans who understood
that liberty could only be preserved by defending it by force.

He was sent as a deputy from Virginia to the first Continental Congress,
which met at Philadelphia in September, 1774. He at once took a
commanding influence in that body, and on its adjournment in October,
returne