After years of unresolved conflict between colonial governments and Parliament, Virginia joined with other colonies to form a continental congress. Lee was elected as a delegate from Virginia.
The three men formed a formidable political alliance that dominated Congress for several years. During the first Congress, Lee supported an economic boycott against British goods; he also called for the formation of militia units and wanted Congress to provide arms and ammunition for these units. Consequently, men like Lee, who represented planter interests in Congress, took the lead in denouncing the measure in the strongest possible terms.
Congress launched its boycott against British-made goods, agreed to convene again in May , and disbanded. When the Second Continental Congress gathered, the delegates were focused on news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which had taken place in Massachusetts nearly two weeks earlier.
Lee and the Adamses bided their time as the more moderate delegates sought reconciliation with the British government. When reconciliation failed, the stage was set on June 7, , for Lee to present his motion to declare independence before Congress. In the interim, Congress appointed a committee that included Thomas Jefferson , Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and John Adams to draft a formal declaration of independence on the chance that the motion would pass.
Soon afterward, however, Lee became the target of a series of vicious rumors. First, Hancock and Robert Morris, a congressional delegate from Pennsylvania, spread the story that Lee, John Adams, and Samuel Adams were attempting to unseat George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental army. Lee had, in fact, allowed his tenants to pay their rent in wheat and tobacco instead of paper money, with the intention of enabling his impoverished tenants to pay rent at all.
By , the attacks on Lee had spread to his extended family. In the previous year Arthur Lee had expressed to Richard Henry Lee his suspicion that Deane was using his political position to improve his own business interests; in Philadelphia, Richard Henry Lee successfully led a movement to recall Deane from France and send John Adams in his place. An outraged Deane defended his behavior before Congress in August , and as he did, the legislative body divided into two camps: those who supported Deane and those who supported Lee.
The political battles that followed almost completely derailed the Continental Congress; its president, Henry Laurens of South Carolina, even resigned. Things got particularly nasty in December , when Deane and his supporters accused the Lee family of corruption and releasing sensitive information to a British spy.
Disgusted and exhausted, Lee resigned his seat in Congress in the spring of and returned to Chantilly-on-the-Potomac. In Virginia, Lee helped develop a plan to defend the Potomac River against a potential British invasion, reactivated his commission as a colonel in the Westmoreland County militia, organized supplies for the Continental Army, and, in , resumed his seat in the House of Delegates.
Lee led his militia unit to victory in April when they fended off a British landing in a skirmish known locally as the Battle of Stratford Landing.
In October , he celebrated as news of British surrender arrived at Chantilly-on-the-Potomac. In , Lee accepted another appointment to Congress and from November to November served as its president. In November Lee resigned his seat in Congress, citing poor health, and returned to Virginia. He stayed out of politics for some time, tending instead to the needs of his family.
Early in , Virginia governor Edmund Randolph asked Lee to return to politics by attending the Constitutional Convention, where intercolonial representatives were to discuss amendments to the current plan of government, the Articles of Confederation. Though Lee declined, he did accept an appointment to Congress in June of that year.
In September , a copy of the proposed constitution arrived from Philadelphia. Lee, Esquire. It also led to the widely held but mistaken belief that Lee authored a series of anonymously penned antifederalist essays collected under the title Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican. Supporters of the new plan of government quickly branded Lee an opponent, and he became their target.
On June 25, , Virginia ratified the U. In his new role, Lee advocated for the constitutional amendments he had initially suggested. Ultimately, however, Lee gained a reputation in the Senate as a moderate and clear-headed lawmaker. In autumn of , after learning that he was being considered for another term in the Senate, Lee wrote a letter to the House of Delegates asking to retire. Encyclopedia Virginia Grady Ave.
Virginia Humanities acknowledges the Monacan Nation , the original people of the land and waters of our home in Charlottesville, Virginia. We invite you to learn more about Indians in Virginia in our Encyclopedia Virginia. Skip to content. Contributor: J. Kent McGaughy. Early Years Stratford Hall. Virtual Tour of Stratford Hall. Rise to Political Prominence The Lee brothers entered the political sphere in , when Philip Lee was appointed to the House of Burgesses, and in Richard Henry Lee was appointed to his first public service position: justice of the peace for Westmoreland County.
The American Revolution After years of unresolved conflict between colonial governments and Parliament, Virginia joined with other colonies to form a continental congress. The Lee-Deane Imbroglio Soon afterward, however, Lee became the target of a series of vicious rumors. Postwar Political Career In , Lee accepted another appointment to Congress and from November to November served as its president.
He is the fourth of their eight children who survive to adulthood. November 14, Thomas Lee, acting governor of Virginia, dies. In , with the Constitution ratified, Lee served as a senator from Virginia, helping shepherd the passage of the Bill of Rights. In declining health, he retired from the Senate and public service to his family and the comfort of his home in Chantilly, Virginia.
On June 19, , Lee died at the age of We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.
Robert E. Lee was the leading Confederate general during the U. Civil War and has been venerated as a heroic figure in the American South. Richard Nixon was the 37th U. Patrick Henry was an attorney, orator and a major figure of the American Revolution who is best known for his words "Give me liberty or give me death!
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In , Richard Loving and his wife Mildred successfully fought and defeated Virginia's ban on interracial marriage via a historic Supreme Court ruling. Henry Lee Lucas was a murderer best known for allegedly killing hundreds of people in the s and '70s, though only three including his mother were confirmed. In any case, he believed that Britain had "already put the two countries asunder" by Parliament's American trade ban of December In July, Lee proposed an economic declaration of independence, throwing open American ports to the trade of the world; but Congress did not act on Lee's suggestion until almost a year later, when it also recommended the formation of independent state governments, an action Lee had already urged upon Virginia.
Lee's three famous resolutions of June 7, , followed logically: American independence, an alliance with France, and a plan of interstate confederation. For the remainder of his stay in Congress , , Lee served on the committee to negotiate foreign alliances, chaired the committee that drafted the formal ratification of the Articles of Confederation, and helped secure Virginia's cession of western land claims.
Lee resisted efforts to give Congress the power to regulate commerce and to impose customs duties. He viewed commerce as an enemy to virtue and the breeder of the mercantile aristocracy that had corrupted Europe. He felt that a Congress with an independent income would threaten the liberties of the states.
Lee approved the Northwest Ordinance because of its property guarantees and the Articles of Confederation because of their guarantees of liberty.
He believed that social happiness was to be found in "a wise and free republic and a virtuous people. Lee wrote the most thoughtful, skillful, and powerful of the Antifederalist polemics, Letters from the Federal Farmer Oct. Lee saw the issue as a contest against both aristocracy and democracy on behalf of the vast majority of "men of middling property.
He died on June 19, , never quite reconciled to the Constitution despite the Bill of Rights, which he had helped to add to it. A full collection of sources is James Curtis Ballagh, ed. Lee's "Farmer's Letters" can be found in Paul L.
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