The
Lee Resolution, or sometimes
Lee's Resolution, was an act of the
Second Continental Congress declaring the
Thirteen Colonies to be independent of the
Kingdom of Great Britain.
[1] It was proposed by
Richard Henry Lee of
Virginia on
June 1,
1776, after receiving instructions from the Virginia Convention and its President,
Edmund Pendleton (in fact Lee used, almost verbatim, the language from the instructions in his resolution).
[2] Delegates from 12 colonies voted to pass it; however, delegates from
New York believed that they had not been sufficiently empowered as representatives so they
abstained (
New York's vote for independence passed on
July 9).
The motion was committed to an ad hoc committee of five consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. Three weeks later the committee reported favorably, and the motion passed the Continental Congress on July 2 1776. It read[3]
Included in the committee report was the Declaration of Independence which Thomas Jefferson had composed. After a number of alterations made from the floor of Congress, the Declaration was passed by the Continental Congress on July 4.
However, few Americans today remember the Lee Resolution; and July 4, the date of the Declaration of Independence, is celebrated as Independence Day in the United States. Nonetheless the exact text of Lee's resolution of June 7, 1776—which passed on July 2nd—is immortalized in the Declaration of Independence, in its final paragraph.
