Richard Henry Lee

Lee was born in Stratford, Westmoreland County in the Colony of Virginia on January 20, 1732. Richard was the son of Col. Thomas Lee, Hon. (1690-1750) and Hannah Harrison Ludwell (1701-1750). He was the great-uncle of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. His nephew, Light Horse Harry Lee earned minor fame during the Revolution, and is now mainly remembered as the father of Robert E. Lee.

Richard was sent to England and educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield in Yorkshire. In 1752 he returned to Virginia, where he began to practice law.


[edit] Early career
In 1757, Lee was appointed justice of the peace for Westmoreland County. In 1758 he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he met Patrick Henry. An early advocate of independence, Lee became one of the first to create Committees of Correspondence among the many independence-minded Americans in the various colonies.


[edit] American Revolution
In August 1774, Lee was chosen as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In Lee's Resolution on the 7th of June 1776 during the Second Continental Congress, Lee put forth the motion to the Continental Congress to declare Independence from Great Britain. which read (in part):

Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

Lee had returned to Virginia by the time Congress voted on and adopted the Declaration of Independence, but he signed the document when he returned to Congress.


[edit] Quotes
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”[1]

“The first maxim of a man who loves liberty, should be never to grant to rulers an atom of power that is not most clearly and indispensably necessary for the