Richard Henry Lee: The Man Who Pulled the Trigger
On June 7, 1776, a tall Virginia planter with a damaged left hand stood on the floor of the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia and introduced a resolution of just three simple sentences that changed the world. He proposed that the colonies should be free and independent states. His idea was a nation of states, and he proposed that we align with foreign countries to make powerful alliances. His name was Richard Henry Lee, and if you do not know it, you should.
Richard Henry Lee was born in 1732 into the most powerful family in Virginia. The Lees of Stratford Hall, a dynasty of planters, politicians, and soldiers whose influence in colonial Virginia was legendary. He lost the fingers of his left hand in a hunting accident in his 20’s, and for the rest of his life wore a black silk handkerchief wrapped around the stump, which became such a part of his public identity that people described his speeches by the dramatic sweep of his black wrapped hand.
Lee was suspicious of British leadership long before most of his peers. As early as 1764 he was warning Virginia's House of Burgesses about the Stamp Act. In 1773 he helped establish Virginia's Committee of Correspondence, which was the communications network that Samuel Adams had pioneered in Massachusetts. It linked the colonies into a shared political intelligence system that grew more and more important as the Revolution evolved. He was, with Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, one of the architects of Virginia's revolutionary politics in the decade before the war.
His June 7th resolution triggered a debate that lasted three weeks. The more cautious delegates from the middle colonies of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware argued that most people in their colonies were not ready for independence, and that a premature declaration would be harmful for the cause. They asked for a delay. Congress agreed to postpone the vote until July 1st, and appointed a Committee of Five to draft a declaration in the meantime, on the belief that the vote for independence would eventually pass.
Lee was called home to Virginia before the July 2nd vote due to his wife's illness, and missed the moment his own resolution was adopted. He returned to Philadelphia in time to sign the Declaration of Independence on August 2nd. History credited Thomas Jefferson as the author and the dramatic vote to John Adams. Lee, who had introduced the motion that set everything in motion, signed his name and returned to Virginia.
He went on to serve as President of the Continental Congress from 1784 to 1785, the period when he presided over the passing of the Land Ordinance of 1785, which established the framework for how the western territories would be organized into new states. He later served in the United States Senate from Virginia and was one of the most vocal advocates for the Bill of Rights, constantly communicating with Patrick Henry and George Mason in their shared desire to amend the Constitution.
He died in 1794, having given 30 years of his life to the cause of American liberty. The resolution of three simple sentences he introduced on June 7, 1776 was the legal act of independence. The Declaration Jefferson wrote explained it to the world. Lee pulled the trigger. History handed Jefferson the gun.
Sources
Chitwood, Oliver Perry. Richard Henry Lee: Statesman of the Revolution. Morgantown: West Virginia University Library, 1967.
Hendricks, J. Edwin. Charles Thomson and the Making of a New Nation, 1729–1824. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1979.
Lee, Richard Henry. Letters of Richard Henry Lee. 2 vols. Edited by James Curtis Ballagh. New York: Macmillan, 1911–1914.
Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf, 1997.
Rakove, Jack N. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress. New York: Knopf, 1979.
