Friday, October 27, 2006

Patrick Henry on Australian Muslim clerics

After rambling on for three long paragraphs, praising the quotation he's about to share with readers, Davic C. Hunnicutt, a Dallas Blog reader, finally quotes Patrick Henry. At least, he thinks he's quoting Patrick Henry. What he gives us is better filed in the too-good-to-be-true category, as a minute or two with a search engine would have revealed:
"Another spurious quotation. These words appear nowhere in the writings or recorded utterances of Patrick Henry."
( http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/capital.asp )

"This has been cited at a some sites as being in a speech to the House of Burgesses in May 1765, but the date and quote both seem spurious: it is extremely anachronistic to have Henry speaking of the colony of Virginia in 1765 as a "nation" that afforded "peoples of other faiths" the "freedom of worship." ( http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patrick_Henry#Disputed_quotations )

"Henry was an anti-federalist, and vigorously opposed the Constitution when Virginia discussed ratification. Quoting Henry to prove things about the constitution is like quoting the chairman of the Republican National Committee to prove things about the platform of the Democratic party."
-- http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/debate.htm

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