Editing Patrick Henry (section)

=== Lawyer and landowner (1766–1773)===
Fauquier dissolved the Burgesses on June 1, 1765, hoping new elections would purge the radicals, but this proved not to be the case as conservative leaders were instead voted out. The governor did not call the Burgesses into session until November 1766, by which time the Stamp Act had been repealed by Parliament, preventing Virginia from sending delegates to the [[Stamp Act Congress]] in [[New York City|New York]]. Henry's role in the active resistance that took place in Virginia against the Stamp Act is uncertain. Although the lack of a legislative session sidelined Henry during the crisis, it also undermined the established leaders of the chamber, who remained scattered through the colony with little opportunity to confer as the public rage for change grew hotter.{{sfn|Kukla|pp=80–82}}

When the Burgesses eventually convened, Henry sometimes opposed the colonial leaders but united with them against British policies. In the late 1760s and early 1770s, Henry spent more time concentrating on his personal affairs,<ref name = "a" /> though he advanced in standing within the Burgesses serving on powerful committees.{{sfn|Campbell|p=72}} The Henry family moved to a new house on his Louisa County property, probably in late 1765, and lived there until 1769 when he returned to Hanover County. His law practice remained strong until the courts under royal authority closed in 1774. Jefferson later complained that Henry was lazy and ignorant in the practice of the law, his sole talent trying cases before juries, and accused Henry of charging criminal defendants high fees to get them acquitted. Norine Dickson Campbell, in her biography of Henry, found Jefferson's comments unfounded; that Henry's rates were moderate for the time and cited earlier historians as to Henry's competence.{{sfn|Campbell|pp=62–65}} Jefferson's comments came years after the two, once friends, quarreled.{{sfn|Kidd|pp=71–72}} In 1769, Henry was admitted to practice before the [[General Court of Virginia (colonial)|General Court of Virginia]] in Williamsburg, a venue more prestigious than the county courts.{{sfn|Kidd|p=71}}{{sfn|Campbell|p=xvii}}

Henry invested some of his earnings in frontier lands, in what is now the western part of Virginia, as well as in present-day West Virginia and Kentucky. He claimed ownership though many of them were controlled by the Native Americans, and he sought to get the colonial (and, later, state) government to recognize his claims. This was common among Virginia's leading citizens, such as [[George Washington]]. Henry foresaw the potential of the [[Ohio River|Ohio Valley]] and was involved in schemes to found settlements. Income from land deals in 1771 enabled him to buy [[Scotchtown (plantation)|Scotchtown]], a large plantation in Hanover County, which he purchased from John Payne, the father of [[Dolley Madison]]—she lived there for a brief time as a child. Scotchtown, with 16 rooms, was one of the largest mansions in Virginia.{{sfn|Kidd|pp=72–73}}

Henry was a lifelong slaveholder from the time of his marriage at age 18.{{sfn|Kidd|p=15}} Henry professed that slavery was wrong and expressed hopes for its abolition, but he had no plan for doing so nor for the multiracial society that would result, for he did not believe schemes to settle freed slaves in Africa were realistic, "to re-export them is now impracticable, and sorry I am for it."{{sfn|Kukla|pp=100–102}} He wrote in 1773, "I am the master of slaves of my own purchase. I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it."{{sfn|Kukla|p=124}} But the number of slaves he owned increased over time and as a result of his second marriage in 1777, so that at his death in 1799, he owned 67 slaves.{{sfn|Kidd|pp=15–16}} In 1778, Henry and other planters, believing there to be a surplus of slave labor in Virginia, easily brought the transatlantic importation of new enslaved Africans to an end.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Broadwater |first=Jeff |title=Madison, James and Slavery |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/madison-james-and-slavery/ |access-date=February 23, 2024 |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |language=en-US |archive-date=February 24, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240224161232/https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/madison-james-and-slavery/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The planters supported the effort to limit slave imports for their own economic reasons and for fear of slave rebellions, but they did not seek abolition of slaves already in Virginia,<ref>{{Cite web |last=McBurney |first=Christian |date=September 14, 2020 |title=The First Efforts to Limit the African Slave Trade Arise in the American Revolution: Part 2 of 3, The Middle and Southern Colonies |url=https://allthingsliberty.com/2020/09/the-first-efforts-to-limit-the-african-slave-trade-arise-in-the-american-revolution-part-2-of-3-the-middle-and-southern-colonies/ |access-date=February 23, 2024 |website=Journal of the American Revolution |language=en-US |archive-date=February 23, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240223071110/https://allthingsliberty.com/2020/09/the-first-efforts-to-limit-the-african-slave-trade-arise-in-the-american-revolution-part-2-of-3-the-middle-and-southern-colonies/ |url-status=live }}</ref> although moving towards abolition said to be a reason for passing the act. With a surplus of slaves and the ability to import more African slaves cut off, Virginia later became a source of slaves sold south in the [[coastwise slave trade]].{{sfn|Kukla|p=125}}