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The Second Virginia Convention was a meeting of the Patriot legislature of Virginia which opened at St. John's Episcopal Church in Richmond on March 20, 1775. It was the setting for Patrick Henry's famous speech, Give me liberty, or give me death!
Contents
Background
The delegates to the Second Virginia Convention were selected by the First Virginia Convention, which took place from August 1–6, 1774.
Meeting
Peyton Randolph continued in his role as president. The Convention selected delegates to the Second Continental Congress. Henry gave his speech on March 23, after which it was resolved that the colony be "put into a posture of defence: and that Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Robert Carter Nicholas, Benjamin Harrison, Lemuel Riddick, George Washington, Adam Stephen, Andrew Lewis, William Christian, Edmund Pendleton, Thomas Jefferson and Isaac Zane, Esquires, be a committee to prepare a plan for the embodying arming and disciplining such a number of men as may be sufficient for that purpose." The speech was also a contributing factor in the decision by governor John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore to remove the gunpowder from the Williamsburg, Virginia magazine to a Royal Navy ship in the Gunpowder Incident.