![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Patrick_Henry_speaking_before_the_Virginia_Assembly.tiff/lossy-page1-640px-Patrick_Henry_speaking_before_the_Virginia_Assembly.tiff.jpg&w=640&q=50)
Give me liberty or give me death!
Famous line from a Patrick Henry speech in 1775 / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Give me Liberty, or give me Death!?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
"Give me liberty or give me death!" is a quotation attributed to American politician and orator Patrick Henry from a speech he made to the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775, at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia.[1] Henry is credited with having swung the balance in convincing the convention to pass a resolution delivering Virginian troops for the Revolutionary War. Among the delegates to the convention were future United States presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Patrick_Henry_speaking_before_the_Virginia_Assembly.tiff/lossy-page1-640px-Patrick_Henry_speaking_before_the_Virginia_Assembly.tiff.jpg)
Over forty years after Patrick Henry delivered his speech and eighteen years after his death, biographer William Wirt published a posthumous reconstruction of the speech in his 1817 work Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry.[2] This is the version of the speech as it is widely known today and was reconstructed based on the recollections of elderly witnesses many decades later. A scholarly debate persists among colonial historians as to what extent Wirt or others invented parts of the speech including its famous closing words.[2][3][4]