ory generated more memorable utterances than the nation’s fight for independence from Great Britain. See if you can match these statements to their authors. The aswers appear below.
1. Who famously declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” during a speech to the Second Virginia Convention in 1775?
2. Who argued in his pamphlet, Common Sense, that “government even in its best state is but a necessary evil”?
3. Who wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” are inalienable rights?
4. Which famous inventor and diplomat told the Continental Congress, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately?”
5. Who is credited with the defiant last words, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” before being executed as a spy by the British?
6. When asked to surrender his ship during a naval battle, which commander replied, “I have not yet begun to fight?”
7. Which British King reportedly stated, “A traitor is everyone who does not agree with me,” during the escalating conflict?
8. What Transcendentalist essayist and poet memorialized the Battles of Lexington and Concord describing the skirmishes as “the shot heard round the world”?
9. Who signed his name in famously large script on the Declaration reportedly saying, “There, I guess King George will be able to read that”?
10. What Commander of the Continental Army exhorted his men in July 1776 saying, “You are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty”?
11. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem described what Boston silversmith as saying, “The British are coming”?
Answers:
1. Patrick Henry
2. Thomas Paine
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. Benjamin Franklin
5. Nathan Hale
6. John Paul Jones
7. King George III
8. Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. John Hancock
10. George Washington
11. Paul Revere
