Richard Henry Lee
Born: January 20, 1732
Died: June 19, 1794
Colony/State: Virginia
Occupation / Public Role: Planter, legislator, delegate to the Continental Congress, U.S. Senator
Contribution to the Founding Era: Delegate to the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence, author of the Lee Resolution calling for independence, president of the Continental Congress, and later a United States Senator from Virginia.
Richard Henry Lee was born at Stratford Hall in Westmoreland County, Virginia, into the prominent Lee family. He was educated in England at Wakefield Academy and returned to Virginia in the early 1750s. He then entered public life through local office and the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he served from 1758 to 1775.
Before independence, Lee had already become one of Virginia’s strongest voices against British policy. Britannica notes that he opposed the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, and historical accounts credit him with helping promote intercolonial cooperation through committees of correspondence. He was not drifting with the tide. He was one of the men paddling hard toward separation long before a lot of others were ready to say it out loud.
Lee’s biggest moment came in June 1776. Acting under instructions from the Virginia Convention, he introduced the famous Lee Resolution in the Second Continental Congress on June 7, 1776: “that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states.” The National Archives notes that the resolution also called for foreign alliances and a plan of confederation. Congress approved the independence portion on July 2, 1776, clearing the way for the Declaration adopted on July 4.
Lee then signed the Declaration of Independence as one of Virginia’s seven signers. His importance to the founding era, though, was broader than that one signature. He later signed the Articles of Confederation, served as president of the Continental Congress from 1784 to 1785, and became a United States Senator from Virginia in the new federal government.
Lee also played a major role in the debates over the Constitution. He did not attend the Constitutional Convention, but later became a leading Anti-Federalist voice who argued for amendments protecting liberty. Britannica notes that he favored a bill of rights and worried about centralized power, concerns that helped shape the later adoption of the Bill of Rights.
Richard Henry Lee died in 1794 at Chantilly Plantation in Virginia. He is not always as famous in modern memory as Jefferson or Washington, but he was one of the most important Virginians of the revolutionary generation. Plenty of men signed the Declaration. Richard Henry Lee helped put independence on the table in the first place. That is not a side role. That is the opening shove.
Related Links
- Signers of the Declaration of Independence
- Declaration of Independence
- Francis Lightfoot Lee
- Thomas Jefferson
- George Wythe