Patrick Henry’s Assessment
Of The U.S. Constitution:
I Smell A Rat!

The “give me liberty” speech is well known compared to Patrick Henry's equally pithy I smell a rat! proclamation. Even fewer realize the phrase refers to his assessment of the U.S. Constitutional Convention.

Why was Patrick Henry such a Party Pooper when it came to the Constitutional Convention? If Patrick means patriotic why didn’t he live up to his name? Hmm…maybe he did.

Foe Of The Constitution
Friend Of Freedom

Elsewhere we have analyzed the spirit of elitism that characterized the Convention, particularly in the presiding officer, George Washington. Patrick Henry, however, was cut from a different cloth.

Henry was one of the most forthright Christian statesmen of the founding era. Not only did Patrick Henry oppose ratification of the Constitution, he refused the invitation to attend. "I smell a rat!," he exclaimed. Why?

Constitutional historian Forrest McDonald makes this observation: "Neither Sam Adams nor John Hancock of Massachusetts nor Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry of Virginia chose to come (Henry did not because, he said, "I smell a rat"; the others offered no excuses)."

I smell a rat? Henry complained of the illegality of the Convention in ignoring the explicit instructions of Congress not to scrap the Articles of Confederation. "The Federal Convention ought to have amended the old system," he protested, "for this purpose they were solely delegated: the object of their mission extended to no other consideration."

For 23 days in the Virginia ratifying convention, Patrick Henry led the opposition against ratification of the Constitution. According to Long, "In the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788, Patrick Henry protested with vehemence against the proposed new Constitution's lack of sufficient safeguards against governmental abuses due to human weakness among its officials, saying:

"Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt.”

He recognized the danger of establishing power even ostensibly limited power in the hands of men apart from the possibility of recourse to God and Divine Law. This is the essence, indeed the very definition of elitism and tyranny: ruling apart from any reference to the Law of God.

Alexander Hamilton and others down played the threat that the new government would not respect the limits placed upon it "as was being asserted by those who were extremely fearful of any central government with substantial powers and were arguing in favor of stricter and clear limits on Federal power.

Chief among these were Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee and Samuel Adams." The prophetic foresight of these Christian statesmen is all too obvious as we survey the wreckage of the American Republic over two centuries later. "I smell a rat!" was their collective assessment.

The Bill Of Rights

John Eidsmoe calls attention to the fact that "Henry did succeed in persuading the delegates to approve resolutions calling for amendments to the Constitution in the form of a bill of rights. Henry also advised those of his supporters who threatened violence if the Constitution was ratified, to peaceably submit to the new Constitution, and to work for passage of amendments which would safeguard personal liberty."

Unfortunately, even the safeguards of the Bill of Rights, for which Henry so eloquently argued, have been inadequate to overrule the inherent secularism of the body of the Constitution. These bulwarks have failed to withstand the winds of 20th Century skepticism because they are built on a foundation of sand (Matt. 7:24-27).

Most of Henry’s suggested amendments were rejected. It was on the occasion of his first review of the finalized 10 Amendments that he uttered what is now known as Patrick Henry’s Prophecy.

“This government cannot last,” he warned, “It will not last a century. We can only get rid of its oppression by a most violent and bloody struggle.” Seventy-three years later the Civil War was fought over the question of whether or not power was to be consolidated under a godlike central government.

Abraham Lincoln finished the job that James Madison had begun. After the guns of the Civil War fell silent, the voice of Patrick Henry’s great grandson echoed across the battlefields and down the corridors of time. Rev. Edward Fontaine wrote, “The violent and bloody struggle has ensued, and it has not yet ended… The government has been overturned, and the century has not yet rolled away.”

In the teeth of this intrinsic secularism and elitism, modern Christians protest in vain that the First Amendment was never intended to separate God and government. Incredibly, instead of I smell a rat! they repeat endlessly the mantra of original intent. Let us return to the original intent of the founders -- no matter how offensive to God it may be.

America today is much like ancient Israel, who often broke her covenant with God. God patiently chastised the nation and entered into covenant renewal on numerous occasions. Eventually He divorced Himself from national Israel at the time of the incarnation.

Jesus told the leaders of the Jewish nation in no uncertain terms, "The kingdom of God is taken away from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits thereof" (Mt. 21:43). If God’s chosen nation was not immune, how can America presume to escape the judgment of God?

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