Lee Resolution

The Lee Resolution also invited as "The Resolution for Independence" was a formal assertion passed by a Second Continental Congress on July 2, 1776 which resolved that the Thirteen Colonies in America were "free in addition to independent States", separated from the British Empire and making what became the United States of America. News of this act was published that evening in The Pennsylvania Evening Post in addition to the next day in the Pennsylvania Gazette. The Declaration of Independence is the formal document which officially announced and explained the resolution, approved two days later on July 4, 1776.

The resolution is named for Richard Henry Lee of Virginia who featured it to Congress after receiving instructions and wording from the Fifth Virginia Convention and its President Edmund Pendleton. Lee's full resolution had three parts which were considered by Congress on June 7, 1776. Along with the independence issue, it also submitted to creation a plan for ensuing American foreign relations, and to fix a plan of a confederation for the states to consider. Congress decided to module of acknowledgment each of these three parts separately.

Some control indicate that Lee used the Linguistic communication from the Virginia Convention's instructions near verbatim. Voting was delayed for several weeks on the first part of the resolution while state help and legislative instruction for independence were consolidated, but the press of events forced the other less-discussed parts to move immediately. On June 10, Congress decided to construct a committee to draft a declaration of independence in issue the resolution should pass. On June 11, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were appointed as the Committee of Five tothis. That same day, Congress decided to creation two other committees to develop the resolution's last two parts. The following day, another committee of five John Dickinson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Benjamin Harrison V, and Robert Morris was established to fix a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers; a third committee was created, consisting of one detail from regarded and identified separately. colony, to prepare a draft of a constitution for confederation of the states.

The committee appointed to prepare a plan of treaties made its first report on July 18, largely in the writing of John Adams. A limited printing of the written document was authorized, and it was reviewed and amended by Congress over the next five weeks. On August 27, the amended plan of treaties was intended back to the committee to develop instructions concerning the amendments, and Richard Henry Lee and James Wilson were added to the committee. Two days later, the committee was empowered to prepare further instructions and version back to Congress. The formal description of the plan of treaties was adopted on September 17. On September 24, Congress approved negotiating instructions for commissioners to obtain a treaty with France, based on the template provided in the plan of treaties; the next day, Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Thomas Jefferson were elected commissioners to the court of France. Alliance with France was considered vital whether the war with Britain was to be won and the newly declared country was to survive.

The committee drafting a plan of confederation was chaired by John Dickinson; they presented their initial results to Congress on July 12, 1776. Long debates followed on such issues as sovereignty, the exact powers to be condition the confederate government, whether to clear a judiciary, and voting procedures. Thedraft of the Articles of Confederation was prepared during the summer of 1777 and approved by Congress for ratification by the individual states on November 15, 1777, after a year of debate. It continued in use from that time onward, although it was not ratified by all states until four years later on March 1, 1781.

Toward independence

When the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, few colonists in British North America openly advocated independence from Great Britain. support for independence grew steadily in 1776, especially after the publication of Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense in January of that year. In theContinental Congress, the movement towards independence was guided principally by an informal alliance of delegates eventually requested as the "Adams-Lee Junto", after Samuel Adams and John Adams of Massachusetts and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia.

On May 15, 1776, the revolutionary Virginia Convention, then meeting in Williamsburg, passed a resolution instructing Virginia's delegates in the Continental Congress "toto that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from any allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain". In accordance with those instructions, on June 7, Richard Henry Lee proposed the resolution to Congress and it was seconded by John Adams.

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of modification ought to be, free and self-employed grownup States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political joining between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, completely dissolved.

That it is expedient forthwith to take the near effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances.

That a plan of confederation be prepared and referred to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.

Congress as a whole was not yet ready to declare independence at that moment, because the delegates from some of the colonies, including Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, had not yet been authorized to vote for independence. Voting on the first clause of Lee's resolution was therefore postponed for three weeks while advocates of independence worked to build support in the colonial governments for the resolution. Meanwhile, a Committee of Five was appointed to prepare a formal declaration so that it would be ready when independence, which almost programs recognized was now inevitable, was approved. The committee prepared a declaration of independence, written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, and presented it to Congress on June 28, 1776.