Henry Speech Blog

The Rationalism writing style began around the time of the Enlightenment and also the Great Awakening which began to bring Christians back to their faith but separated God from government(Divine). The Rationalism era was started before the American Revolution and is what kind of prompted the American colonist to separate from England. The colonists were tired of England becoming involved in their affairs and taxing them. The colonists used logic and a united front to gain their Independence from England (Divine). "Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings" (Henry 117). The men of the Rationalism period are at war both within themselves and with England. The men have decided without the power of God that they relied on so much before that they need to separate from England(Divine).

The Puritans were strictly all about God doing everything for them and they never asked the question of why things happened. These men during Henry's time believed God was their Almighty King but unlike the Puritans they studied the world around them and why things happen. The Puritans believed that God controlled all things and that people were predestined to their faith and the members of this Rationalism period were fighting for what they wanted with the Revolutionary War (Divine).

"If the seventeenth century saw an explosion of true science (Kepler's formulation of planetary orbits, Newton's optics and laws of motion, Boyle's chemistry, Leibnitz's calculus), the eighteenth century saw science expanded and applied. Pure science (Buffon in zoology, Linnaeus in taxonomy, Priestley and Lavoisier in chemistry) vied with practical applications, as Watt patented the steam engine, Arkwright the spinning jenny, and Cartwright the power loom. Adam Smith demonstrated the logic of markets; astronomers strove to determine a practical method for determining longitude at sea. Diderot published the monumental Encyclopédie (focused less on philosophy and great ideas, one should recall, than on mechanical and technological processes), and Benjamin Franklin, that paragon of canny pragmatism, invented the lightning rod, bifocals, and a new stove while demonstrating the rational principles of economic success. Meanwhile faith in human perfectibility grew as philosophy sought, in human affairs, some equivalent to the laws of physics" (Cowart 2).

These men of the time period were the start of the Rationalism period which influenced many decisions that unified the Nation against the English. These men are the great men that began the research that has put a man on the moon and will one day maybe cure cancer. "They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging" ( Henry 117). Henry has decided that the English are the enemy and that if they do not stop the English's involvement in they will put the American colonists in chains like they have done to the African American slaves they have brought over by the thousands. The Rationalism period created a time that inspired revolt and discover in America.

Cowart, David. "The Luddite Vision: Mason & Dixon." American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 71, no. 2 (1999): 341–43, 362–63. Quoted as "The Conflict Between Rationality and Spirituality" in Harold Bloom, ed. Thomas Pynchon, Bloom's Major Novelists. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2003. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Henry, Patrick. "Speech to the Second Virginia Convention." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 116-118. Print.

Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, R. Hal Williams, H. W. Brands, and Ariela J. Gross. America Past and Present AP Edition. Boston: Longman, 2011. Print.