Thomas Jefferson v. Patrick Henry: A Personal and Political Battle

All of which has resulted in a caricature of Henry, not a critical Founding Father who played an essential role in the Revolution and early America, but a stock figure bellowing for "liberty or death," useful to the modern Tea Party but a historic ghost, a myth. Searching for a new path, Henry sometimes assisted at his father-in-law's tavern across the road from the Hanover County Courthouse. [...]Henry "read the law," in his case studying a few law books, buying those that he could not borrow, and proceeding promptly to the bar examination. [...]he managed to convince three learned and refined colonial lawyers that, though not quite well-enough read at the time, he would continue to study and had the drive, spunk, and ability to receive his license.3 For many years later, decades after Henry's death, the studious Jefferson reported bitterly that the over-confident, slightly cocky Henry told young Jefferson that he himself had only studied for six weeks before coming to Williamsburg for his bar examination.