This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue here with our American stories.

Our next story comes to us from John Regasta.

He's an historian at the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and is a Jack Miller Center fellow. This is the story

of the pivotal role that Patrick Henry played in holding together the American Union in 1799 when it seemed that partisan bickering would put an end

to the American experiment. Let's take a listen. January 15th, 1799, George Washington is living in

retirement at Mount Vernon. On this particular day, it is mild and sunny outside,

but it is becoming very stormy inside.

You can almost sense George Washington pacing the wide pine boards.

Finally, the man that we know is the sword of the American Revolution, sits down, picks up a stack of paper and a quill pen to write a long letter to the man we know as the trumpet of the American Revolution.

Patrick Henry. The former General writes in desperation.

There is a crisis when everything dear and valuable to us is assailed.

He rails at people putting party over country to create the crisis.

Measures are systematically and pertinaciously pursued, which must eventually dissolve the union or produce

coercion, by which Washington meant the U.S. Army marching on its own people. The nation was at risk,

civil war loomed. Washington asked Patrick Henry to come out of retirement,

to help to save the nation that they had helped to found.

Henry had previously been offered positions as Senator, Supreme Court Justice,

Secretary of State, Ambassador to France or Spain, but he had sworn

that he would only come out of retirement if the nation itself was at risk, if we faced the

horrors of anarchy. Receiving Washington's letter, Patrick Henry writes, I accord with

every sentiment you expressed to me.

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