Jefferson gets the acclaim for independence, but it was another Virginian who first proposed a formal break from Britain

This week marks the 250th anniversary of American independence. To mark that, I’ll have a series of 250th-themed columns this week.

The words were Thomas Jefferson’s — well, mostly. Jefferson won the acclaim, the presidency and the legacy. We put his face on our money, his name on a memorial, his work in our history books. It is impossible to think of the Declaration of Independence without thinking of Jefferson.

The act of declaring independence, though, came from another Virginian, whose name recedes from our minds, remembered by historians but not the general public.

As we approach the 250^th anniversary of American independence, let’s take a moment to remember who actually proposed that the Colonies break from Great Britain. It wasn’t Jefferson, it was Richard Henry Lee. In the language of our times, Lee proposed the action, Jefferson wrote the press release explaining it. We remember the latter; the former, not so much.

No counties or cities are named after Lee. (Lee County was named after a different Lee, of which there were many.) The musical “1776” reduces Lee to a comic figure with a single song: “You see it’s here a Lee, there a Lee; And everywhere a Lee.”

At the time, though, Richard Henry Lee was a political power of national proportions, Jefferson little more than a promising backbencher with a reputation as a wordsmith.

Lee’s story is colorful, although not always particularly noble. The Lees were already a prominent family in Virginia when Richard Henry Lee came into the world in 1732 in Westmoreland County on the Northern Neck. The Lee family owned thousands of acres of land and enslaved hundreds of people, which marked them as one of the most prosperous families of their era. Richard Henry Lee’s father sat on the governor’s council and founded the Ohio Company, the equivalent of a real estate firm intent on speculating on lands far to the west of the mountains. When he was 16, Richard Henry Lee and one of his brothers were sent off to England to go to school; the upper classes of Virginia still very much considered themselves British. While the two Lee sons were away, Thomas Lee became acting governor of Virginia — and then promptly died. So did his wife, the boys’ mother. When word of their parents’ passing reached the Lee sons at school in England, Philip Lee promptly decided to return home. Richard Henry Lee did not; he wanted to stay in England to court a woman he fancied and may have wanted to marry. When that relationship failed, Richard Henry Lee left England, but not to go back to Virginia to mourn his parents — he set off on a tour of Europe.

Like I said, his story is not always particularly noble.

By the time Richard Henry Lee returned to Virginia in 1753 — three years after his parents’ deaths — he and his siblings fell into a complicated legal fight over how to divide their parents’ property.

See above about the not particularly noble part.

The family squabbles resolved, many of the Lee sons went into politics, which was what was expected of men of their stature. Richard Henry Lee was named justice of the peace; he was just 25, although for those times that was practically middle-aged. The next year, in 1758, he was elected to the House of Burgesses, a position he would hold until that body was abolished in the fateful year of 1776. Lee was not content with a mere legislative seat, though. He constantly angled to get appointed to the Governor’s Council, as his father had been — the equivalent of the cabinet. The problem: His older brother was already on the council and having two Lees at the same time was considered too much. Lee began to earn a reputation as a fellow who spent a lot of time grasping for money and power.

See above. This is a recurring theme. But we move on …

Fighting the French and Indian War (which was really just the North American part of the wider Seven Years’ War) had more than doubled Britain’s debt. More than half the national budget had to go toward making the interest payments. For British governments following the war’s end in 1763, one top priority was paying down that debt. Those governments thought it quite natural to make the North American colonists pay since the war had been fought for their benefit. The Colonists didn’t see things that way at all; they were accustomed to relatively light taxation and resented some government across the ocean trying to shake them down for more. That’s the whole “taxation without representation” thing in a single paragraph.

One of those taxes that the British tried to impose was the detested Stamp Act, which required Colonists to buy stamps to affix to a variety of legal documents. When Richard Henry Lee first heard about the Stamp Act, he swung into action — and sought to be appointed to the lucrative position as a tax collector. This isn’t something that made it into that “1776” song. Lee wrote to London to talk up his bona fides. There was just one problem: Lee was outmaneuvered by another Virginian, George Mercer, who had the advantage of being in London when the Stamp Act was passed. Mercer got the job.

Lee’s position on the Stamp Act suddenly changed. Whether this was political expedience or some epiphany about taxation, who’s to say? All we know is that when Mercer returned to Virginia, his commission papers in hand, Lee had organized opposition to the Stamp Act. He led a rally in Westmoreland County that hung an effigy of Mercer. Around the neck of the Mercer effigy was a sign that declared “Money Is My God” — an ironic thing to say, given how grasping Lee has been. Lee also led a public campaign to close county courts across Virginia — with the courts closed, then no one could be punished for violating the Stamp Act. And when Mercer stepped off the boat, Lee led an assembly of “gentlemen of property” who accosted Mercer as he made his way to the Governor’s Palace. Mercer was so intimidated that he claimed he never sought the position and would not dare sell the hated stamps.

Mercer may have won the job, but Lee won the crowd. He went back to Westmoreland County where he organized more rallies against the Stamp Act. Here’s how hot things got: Four hundred men marched in military formation on Tappahannock where they intended to pay a “visit” to a merchant who was complying with the law. We don’t know which Lee led this uprising — Richard Henry Lee or one of his brothers — but one of them did.

Some might see Lee as principled; others might see him as a grasping demagogue who just happened to wind up on the right side. History is complicated.

To his credit, Lee was among those who came to see slavery as wrong, although he couldn’t bring himself to part with his own enslaved workforce. Lee stunned the House of Burgesses when he declared that enslaved Africans were “equally entitled to liberty and freedom by the great law of nature.” Other members of the Lee family agreed with him. The Journal of the American Revolution writes: “It was hypocrisy for the Lees to take their stands — as it would be for Thomas Jefferson later — but it was also part of a transition period where the realization that slavery was morally and socially abhorrent began to take root.”

As a public figure with strong views, Lee was also a man with enemies. Some he inherited from his father; others he made on his own. Such was the case with John Robinson. Robinson was one of the most politically powerful Virginians of the time — he was speaker of the House and treasurer of Virginia at the same time. Lee led a campaign to force Robinson to give up one of those offices. Lee failed, which made him “a marked man in the eyes of Robinson and his supporters,” according to Encyclopedia Virginia. Lee had the better argument — it was dangerous to concentrate so much power in the same set of hands — but may not have been the best vessel for the argument given his history of office-seeking.

Then Robinson died. As executors examined his estate, they exposed a Colonial scandal: The treasury came up 100,000 pounds short, which would be a large amount today and was even larger then. You’d think that would have vindicated Lee’s position. It did not. “Lee’s role in exposing this corruption earned him the enmity of several more prominent Virginians, including Carter Braxton, Benjamin Harrison, and Edmund Pendleton,” Encyclopedia Virginia says.

I don’t know about you, but I always enjoy hearing about these petty rivalries; human nature doesn’t change much over the years.

Despite all these enemies, Lee’s political standing rose over the years. Suddenly it was 1774 and Lee was elected as one of Virginia’s delegates to the new Continental Congress. In the eyes of King George III, this was a rogue assembly, without any force of law — yet he made no effort to shut it down. It was in that Congress that Lee’s star shone brightest.

As a delegate from Virginia, one of the largest Colonies, he arrived with power behind him. In Philadelphia, he made friends with John Adams and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts — either political hotheads or rising leaders, depending on your point of view. Their friendship was consequential. “The three men formed a formidable political alliance that dominated Congress for several years,” Encyclopedia Virginia says. By “several years,” it means the three critical years of 1774, 1775 and 1776, when Colonial complaints against Britain hardened into a determination to go to war.

Lee was at the center of all the key actions during those three years. He advocated an economic boycott of British goods. He called for Colonies to form militia units, and pushed for Congress to send them arms and ammunition. In Philadelphia, he led the arguments against the British legislation that he considered the worst of all: the Quebec Act that gave the Ohio country to the French-speaking colony. For Lee (and other Virginians who had invested in real estate speculation), this was nothing more than theft — Virginia’s rightful property stolen from it and given to, well, foreigners, as American Colonists saw Quebec. Back in Virginia, Lee called for creating a Committee of Correspondence — basically a group to keep in touch with the other colonies. That seems a simple thing now, the 18^th century equivalent of a group chat. At the time, though, it was an almost revolutionary act because it served to unite the Colonies into a single cause.

Lee was on a roll. He was making things happen, certainly not all on his own, but he was a political mover and shaker.

Through the late spring of 1776, a clamor began to arise for what was then called “independencey.” Cumberland County, Virginia, may have been the first locality to issue a call for such a radical step; Charlotte County was the second. North Carolina passed a measure saying the Colony would be in favor if the issue came up. Lee made sure it came up.

By early June, more than 90 different communities had passed resolutions of some sort in favor of “independencey.” Virginia had already hauled down the British flag. Most royal governors had already fled. The Colonies were independent in fact, if not in law. On June 7, Lee rose in Congress to introduce a resolution to declare the Colonies formally independent. Years before, a hunting rifle had exploded in Lee’s hand, blowing off four fingers. He kept the hand wrapped in a black silk handkerchief. It’s said that as he rose to make his motion for independence, he dramatically let the black silk fall, exposing his wound to all to see.

Lee’s resolution was simple: “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.”

It was also so controversial that John Hancock, the Boston merchant (and notorious smuggler) who presided over the Congress, thought it best not to call for a vote just yet. There was still lobbying to be done to get a unanimous vote, which was what was required. Meanwhile, congressional leaders thought it best to prepare for a “yes” vote, in which case they’d need a statement explaining their remarkable action. For that, they appointed a committee. Lee, though, wasn’t on it.

At this dramatic stage of events, Lee left Philadelphia. He was ill (he reportedly suffered from epilepsy). He had family ill at home. He also wanted to help Virginia draft a new constitution. He wrote Patrick Henry that since royal authority had collapsed, Virginia was already effectively independent which meant it had no legal government at all. Lee felt Virginia desperaely needed a constitution: “To every legal intent and purpose dissolved our Government, uncommissioned every magistrate, and placed us in the high road to Anarchy,” he wrote to Henry. “In Virginia we have certainly no Magistrate lawfully qualified to hang a murderer, or any other villain offending ever so atrociously against the state. We cannot be Rebels excluded from the King’s protection and Magistrates acting under his authority at the same time. This proves the indispensable necessity of our taking up government immediately, for the preservation of Society.” In any case, Lee left town. Needing a Virginian on the drafting committee, the Congress turned to another Virginia: Thomas Jefferson, who had a well-earned reputation as a wordsmith. The committee left the work to him.

Lee wasn’t there in Philadelphia for the vote on July 2 that declared independence. Nor was he there in Philadelphia when the time came two days later to vote on the document explaining this radical step. Lee’s resolution passed, but Jefferson got the glory. He doubtless deserves it, but what of Lee?

John Adams thought the vote approving “the Lee Resolution” on July 2, 1776, was a big deal.

“I am apt to believe that it [July 2] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival,” he wrote on July 3 to his wife, Abigail. “It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

It is not.

Lee got into more political fights (not always of his making). He led the local militia on the Northern Neck to repel a small British landing near the end of the war. Afterwards, he dropped out of politics, citing poor health. He passed up a chance to be a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. When the constitution was produced, he wrote some mild objections, noting the lack of a Bill of Rights. The constitution’s supporters turned on Lee, thinking him an opponent, when he was not. “The bitter invective that characterized much of the public debate over the proposed constitution shortened Lee’s role in the ratification debates; in January 1788, he withdrew from the public debate, preferring to offer advice away from the public eye,” Encyclopedia Virginia says.

He rallied enough that he agreed to become one of Virginia’s first two U.S. senators. He was respected enough that colleagues named him president pro tem, meaning he presided in the absence of the vice president. It was an unhappy term for Lee, though. “He tried to re-create his political partnership with his old ally (and current president of the Senate) John Adams, but Lee’s insistence on favoring a limited government drove the former friends apart,” Encyclopedia Virginia says.

His health worsened, he missed sessions. Come 1792, Lee declined to seek reelection. Two years later, he was in the grave.

Lee’s political star peaked in the years before independence and was in gradual recession from then on. But let history record: When the Continental Congress voted on independence, it was voting on Lee’s resolution. That ought to count for something.

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