Richard Henry Lee
Richard Henry Lee, the son of Thomas Lee, was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on January 20, 1732. Richard was one of the powerful orators of 1776.Cromwell assumes the Crown of England
His ancestors were among the early settlers of the Old Dominion and were prominent in directing the destiny of the Colony. The Lees resisted the arbitrary power (exercised by Charles I) over his European subjects, which hurled him from his throne. When Cromwell assumed the crown, Virginians did not recognize him as an authority. The mandate that proclaimed the second Charles King-originated with Richard Henry Lee and Governor Berkeley of Virginia. The elder Lees cherished the plan of ultimate Independence. They contemplated the millennium of Freedom in America through the bright vista of the future. So strongly impressed was the father of Richard Henry with this idea that he fixed in his mind the location of the seat of government and purchased lands in the vicinity of Washington.Richard Henry Lee began his education at Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, and remained in that kingdom until he completed it. He returned to Virginia as a finished scholar and accomplished gentleman.
The French and Indian War 1754-1763
His first public act was raising a company of troops and tendering his services to General Braddock. After Braddock's defeat, Lee was appointed a Justice of the Peace and President of the Court (1757). Soon after that, he was a member of the House of Burgesses, and when he held the rank of the Cicero of America, he noticed the base lawlessness of Mr. Robinson, the treasurer of the Colony. He successfully proved that the treasurer had repeatedly re-issued reclaimed treasury bills to his favorite friends to support them in their extravagance, by which the Colony was robbed of the amount by their payment a second time without a quid pro quo [equivalent.] Mr. Lee was applauded by every honest man for this bold act-hated and dreaded by public knaves.The Townshend Act
When Charles Townshend laid before the British Parliament the evil and more extensive plan of taxing the American colonies, which Mr. Grenville called the philosopher's stone, Mr. Lee was among the first to sound the alarm. Within a month after the passage of the preliminary Act in Parliament, followed by a revolting catalog of unconstitutional and oppressive laws, he furnished his London friends with a list of arguments against it sufficient to convince every reasonable man of the injustice and impolicy of the measure.The Stamp Act
When Patrick Henry proposed his bold resolutions against the Stamp Act in 1765, Mr. Lee gave them the powerful aid of his eloquent and unanswerable logic. He aided in compelling the collector of stamps to relinquish his office and deliver up his commission and the odious stamp paper. The people were asked not to touch or handle it. He corresponded with the patriots of New York and New England. According to the testimony of Colonel Gadsden of South Carolina and the public documents of that eventful era, Mr. Lee was the first man who proposed the Independence of the colonies.He had unquestionably imbibed the idea from his father, whose ancestors had predicted it for the last hundred years and had probably handed it down from sire to son. In a letter from Richard Henry Lee to Mr. Dickinson dated July 25, 1768, he proposes upon all seasonable occasions to impress upon the minds of the people the necessity of a struggle with Great Britain for the ultimate establishment of Independence-that private correspondence should be sent by the lovers of Liberty in every province. His early proposition in Congress to sever the material ties was considered premature by most of the friends of Liberty. He had long nursed this favorite project in his bosom-he was anxious to transplant its vigorous scions into the congenial bosoms of his fellow patriots.
Soon after the House of Burgesses convened in 1769, as chairman of the judiciary committee, Mr. Lee introduced resolutions so highly charged with liberal principles calculated to demolish the Grenville superstructure and reduce to dust his talismanic philosopher's stone that they caused a dissolution of the House and concentrated the wrath of the British ministry and its servile bipeds against him. The rich fruits of their persecution were the formation of non-importation associations, committees of safety and correspondence, and the disaffection of the English merchants towards the mother country due to the careless measures calculated to prostrate their importing and exporting trade. Lord North now assumed the management of the grand drama of oppression and laid more deeply the revenue plan. By causing a repeal of the more offensive Acts, he hoped to lull the storm of opposition that was rapidly rising and prepare for more efficient action. Had the Boston Port Bill been omitted, his dark designing treachery might have succeeded more triumphantly.
In 1774, Mr. Lee was a delegate to the Congress convened at Philadelphia. At that memorable meeting, he played a conspicuous part. After Patrick Henry had broken the seal that rested on the lips of the members as they sat in deep and solemn silence, he was followed by Mr. Lee in a strain of belles-lettres eloquence and persuasive reasoning that took the hearts of his audience captive and restored to a calm the boiling agitation that shook their manly frames as the mountain torrent of Demosthenean eloquence was poured upon them by Henry. He was on the committee that prepared an address to the king-Great Britain's people and the Colonies. Those documents were written by him and adopted with but few amendments. He was on the committee that prepared the address to the people of Quebec and upon the committee of rights, grievances, and non-intercourse with the mother country. In the warmth of his ardor, he proposed several rejected resolutions because they were considered premature. Many members still hoped that timely redress of grievances would restore peace. They had clearly and forcibly set forth their complaints and desires. For the solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion-the proceedings of that Congress stand without a parallel upon the historic page. So thought Lord Chatham, Burke, and many of the wisest English politicians at that time.
In 1775, Mr. Lee was unanimously elected to the Virginia Legislature, received a vote of thanks for his noble course in Congress, and was made a delegate for the next session. A more pleasant field now opened for this ardent patriot. Temporizing was no longer the order of the day. Vigorous action had become necessary. His zeal and industry had ample scope. With all his might, he entered into the good work. Upon committees-in the House, everywhere he was all activity.
In 1776, he was a member of Congress. In obedience to the instructions of the Virginia Legislature and his nursed desires, on June 7, he rose amidst the assembled patriots of the nation in the Hall of Liberty. He offered the resolution for the adoption of a Declaration of Independence. On the 10th of the same month, he was called home by the illness of his family, which prevented him from taking his place as chairman of the committee upon his resolution agreeably to parliamentary rules. Thomas Jefferson replaced him. The wrath of British power against him was now at its zenith. During his short stay at home, an armed force broke into his home at night and, by threats and bribes, endeavored to induce his servants to inform them of the whereabouts of Lee. He was a few miles away with a friend. They were told he had gone to Philadelphia.
In August, he returned to Congress and most gladly affixed his name to that sacred instrument upon which his imagination had feasted for years. He continued at his post until June 1777, when he returned home to confute a base slander charging him with unfaithfulness to the American cause because he had received rent in kind instead of Continental money. The Assembly acquitted Lee, and he received a vote of thanks from that body for his fidelity and industry in the cause of freedom-a cooler to his semi-tory enemies. During the two ensuing years, his poor health compelled him to leave Congress several times, but his counsel was at the command of his colleagues at all times. Nothing but death could abate his zeal in the good cause.
Lee was appointed to the command of the militia of his native county and proved competent to wield the sword and lead his men to action as he was to command an audience by his powerful eloquence. Defeated in the north, the British moved the war to the Southern States. Whenever they approached the neighborhood under the charge of Mr. Lee they found his arrangements to be more precise for their convenience and abandoned their visits entirely. In 1780-1782, he served in the Virginia legislature. The proposition of making paper bills a legal tender-of paying debts due to the mother country and of a general assessment to support the Christian religion-was before the House and excited great interest. Mr. Lee advocated, and Mr. Henry opposed them. From the necessity of the case, he was in favor of the first. Upon the sacredness of contracts, Lee based his arguments on the second, and from ethics, he concluded in favor of the last. He said refiners might weave reason into as delicate a web as they pleased, but the experience of all time had shown religion to be the guardian of morals. He contended that the Declaration of Rights was aimed at restrictions on the form and mode of worship and not against the legal compulsory support of it. In this, Mr. Lee erred. He probably had forgotten that Christ declared his kingdom was not of this world and that the great Head of the Christian religion had forever dissolved the bans of church and state by that declaration. In other respects, the position is untenable in a republican government and can never promote genuine piety in any.
In 1784, he was again elected to Congress and chosen President of that body. At the session's close, he received a vote of thanks for the faithful and able performance of his duty and retired to the bosom of his family to rest from his long and arduous toils. He was a member of the Convention that framed the Federal Constitution and was deeply interested in forming that saving instrument. He was a U.S. Senator in the first Congress that convened under it and fully sustained his previous high reputation. Infirmity at length compelled him to bid a final farewell to the public arena.
Lee died on June 19, 1794.