Part One

Introduction

CHAPTER 1

A Look At The Past For Sake Of The Future

The American people today are faced with a galaxy of problems centering around the difficulties resulting from the attempt of diverse racial and economic groups to live together under a single government. The great majority of scholars agree that the roots of these problems go back through the web of American history into the colonial period.

In addition to our domestic problems, we Americans must also wrestle with the problems resulting from our assumption of the position of leadership of the Western democracies. Many of the current world problems, like some of our domestic difficulties, are the outgrowth of what many writers are now terming the "freedom explosion." A sizeable number of the new nations of the world are facing situations which have a distinct resemblance to those of eighteenth and nineteenth-century America.

A knowledge of America's past should prove, therefore, to be enlightening in studying the issues of today. Some people, perhaps, can see little correlation between the eighteenth century and our modern atomic age. Time has truly brought progress, and with that progress has come far-reaching changes in science, in technology, and in standards of living. Yet one thing does not change - the basic human nature. A brief glance at our history books or at the Bible indicates that the basic human nature of man has changed not at all since the days of Adam or of Charlemagne. Our modern problems, like those of yesteryear, are wrapped up within the complexity of human and of group action; therefore, it should be rewarding to re-examine the American Revolutionary Period and to take a deeper look into the lives of our founding fathers.

Certainly, any study of the Revolutionary America would not be complete without a penetrating analysis of the life of Patrick Henry, for this man was, in the words of John Adams, the man who would "have glory with posterity of beginning and concluding this great revolution."

His position of leadership among the Revolutionary leaders and his penetrating insight into the direction of future Constitutional development certainly places him in a preferred position to students who wish to achieve a clear understanding of this era.

Editor's note: To read the work in its entirety, locate "The Christian Philosophy of Patrick Henry by Carris Kocher" either in book form, or search the internet.

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