The resolutions of Virginia alarmed Washington as exhibiting a discontent with the Union. He wrote to Patrick Henry, one of the Virginians Henry Adams names, to induce him to interpose his great influence in the matter.[79] Henry, whose impassioned eloquence had done so much to bring Virginia into the war of the revolution, who ably and persistently opposed in the Virginia convention the acceptance of the Constitution from fear that the great powers given to the United States would be fatal to liberty, had become one of its strongest supporters. He shared Washington’s anxiety. Though he had often been Governor of the State, and had declined offers of the most important national offices under Washington, he offered himself as a candidate for election to the House of Burgesses, to do what he could to put an end to this discontent and what he considered the rash measures of the State. In his speech before his constituents, he declared that Virginia had quitted the sphere in which she had been placed by the Constitution in daring to pronounce upon the validity of federal laws, and asked, “whether the county of Charlotte would have any authority to dispute an obedience to the laws of Virginia, and he pronounced Virginia to be to the Union what the county of Charlotte was to her.”[80] Nor did he believe that resistance would be peaceful; for he warned the people that the opposition of Virginia to the acts of the General Government must beget their enforcement, and that war would ensue with Washington and a veteran army as opponents. It was the period of our hostility with France, and Washington had been made commander-in-chief. Henry was chosen to the House of Burgesses by a large majority, but died before the session began in which Virginia’s conciliatory explanation of her resolves and her loyalty and attachment to the Union and the supremacy of those laws in all delegated powers was made. [79] Washington’s letter to Henry, Sparks’ _Washington_, vol. xi., p. 387. The letter also contains his opinion of those in opposition to the government. [80] Wirt’s _Life of Patrick Henry_, pp. 393, 394. Moses Coit Tyler’s _Life of Patrick Henry_, p. 373.