 I am Richard Henry Lee, and I and my family were intimately involved in the events, trials, and ideologies that led up to that momentous year of 1776. The Lee family was one of the first families of Virginia, and Virginia was the most powerful English colony in the New World. It is no wonder that the Lees left a lasting mark on what became the United States of America. I and my brothers are the fourth generation of American Lees. Our great-grandfather emigrated from England. Now, there's a family legend that was perpetuated into my father's day that we are actually descended from a Norman knight that came over with William the Conqueror and participated in the conquest of England. Some versions of the legend even say we're descended from William himself. Well, I'm not sure there's actually any truth to that myth. It is true, however, that the name Lee comes from the old French De Lager, meaning of the law. So that would seem to suggest Norman influence, though more likely the name of a judge than a knight. The Lees have always been businessmen and entrepreneurs. One such ancestor was a wine merchant who sold wine to the crown. Royals are, of course, notorious for not discharging their debts. Instead of paying him in silver, the King gave him worthless land in the New World. My great-grandfather came to Virginia in 1640 to claim those thousand acres. There was enough property to place him on the Virginia Council of State, the governing body of the new colony. Since that time, the Lees have been a part of the ruling aristocracy. Even though the family had been transplanted to the colonies, we still maintained close ties with England. And why shouldn't we? After all, we were an English colony and England had a voracious appetite for tobacco. Over the following generations, a whole fleet of ships took lead tobacco to every corner of the empire. A part of thinking of ourselves as displaced Englishmen meant that the sons of prominent families in Virginia were educated in England. For our family, Eaton was the school. Well, at least that's where the oldest son went. My brother Philip Ludwell went to Eaton while my brother and I attended Wakefield. By the time my education was complete, my parents had died and my eldest brother Philip, or Colonel Phil, as we called him, was the head of the household. Since I had no interest in farming or commerce, we agreed that I should go into public service. My brother secured me a position as Justice of the Peace for Westmoreland County. However, Augustine Washington, George Washington's older brother, had planned to retire from the House of Burgesses and his seat would be open and he suggested that I run for it. I did and I won. My brother Francis Lightfoot Lee won the seat for Ludon County. Colonel Phil was already a member. When I walked into my first session of the House of Burgesses flanked by my two brothers, I joined eight other cousins and in-laws. We formed the largest voting block in the Assembly, often controlling more than 10% of the vote. At the time of my entry into the House of Burgesses in 1758, we here in the colonies were still at war with French. However, the capture of Fort Duquesne in September that year ended the immediate threat to Virginia and the British victory at the Battle of Quebec the following year all but ended the conflict in North America. The problem, of course, is that it had been a very expensive war and Parliament was looking for a way to pay for it. Since much of the conflict had taken place in the New World, they turned their eye to the American colonies. Even though they couldn't hope to conquer or rather cover the national debt of the Empire with taxes on the colonies, they could hope to cover some of the expenses of keeping a standing army here in the colonies. What was the Parliament's solution? The Sugar Act. The Sugar Act was a bill set to replace the Molasses Act of 1733. You don't need to know all that. What you need to know is the way that Americans had gotten around the old Molasses Act was simply to smuggle molasses and sugar, which they largely turned into rum. You see, Parliament had a policy of what Edmund Burke called salutary neglect. Enforcing the law took four times as much money as the tax brought in, so they didn't bother. The problem with the New Sugar Act is while it lowered the tax in an effort to make the colonists more willing to pay it, it provided more funds for enforcement of the act, therefore making it difficult to smuggle. And this at a time when the colonies were entering into a post-war economic depression and everyone was desperately in need of a dram of rum. Americans protested this act by simply refusing to buy British luxury goods. This in turn made British merchants lose money, and so they petitioned Parliament for the repeal of the Sugar Act. Next, Parliament tried a different tactic when they passed the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was an act requiring that a government tax stamp be affixed to various different paper products. So a newspaper, a deck of playing cards, marriage license, legal document, these all would require that a tax be paid so that a stamp might be affixed to the product before it was sold. On the surface there may seem to be very little difference between these two acts, but in fact, they were radically different. The Sugar Act was a tariff. It was an act designed to regulate commerce and trade, perfectly legal for Parliament to pass. The Stamp Act, on the other hand, was a direct tax on domestically produced and consumed items. It's understandable that Parliament might say you need to pay a duty on that imported barrel of molasses, but it is another thing entirely for them to say you have to pay a tax in order to sell a newspaper that you printed on your own press with your own paper in your home colony. It is the birthright privilege of every British subject that he cannot be taxed but by the consent of a Parliament in which he is represented by persons chosen by the people and who themselves pay a part of the tax they impose upon others. I wrote a set of resolutions related to the Stamp Act and presented them to the gentlemen of Westmoreland County. Three of my brothers and four Washington sign on February 27, 1766, a decade before the Declaration of Independence, Westmoreland County declared that Parliament had no right to extend such a jurisdiction over it. Because of the public protests and pressure from British merchants, the stay-at-back was repealed almost as quickly as it went into effect. In the years that followed, however, Parliament continued to try to apply direct revenue duties to the colonies. In May of 1769, George Mason proposed a resolution in the House of Burgesses that only the governor and the authorized legislature would authorize to tax the colonists of Virginia. The royal governor responded by dissolving the House of Burgesses. Protests continued, and the following year on March 5, they erupted into violence as British soldiers opened fire on a crowd of protesting citizens, killing five and what would become known forever as the Boston Massacre. Even then, Parliament would not fully relent. They removed all the duties but won the tea tax. This led to protests all along the North Atlantic seaboard, but the most famous one happened on December 16, 1773, in Boston, the Boston Tea Party. 342 chests of tea were thrown into Boston Harbor. That's enough tea to make 18 and a half million cups. The British responded by closing the port of Boston and passing what became known to the colonies as the Intolerable Acts. These acts allowed for British officials and American offenders, both, to be tried in England for crimes committed here. They also updated the Quartering Act, allowing red-coat soldiers to occupy unused buildings. Other colonies started sending food and supplies by wagon to the people of Boston and continued to boycott British goods. One of the problems we faced was the fact that groups in each colony were acting independently from one another, although many like-minded individuals from all across the colonies had been writing letters for a decade through committees of correspondence. It was sometimes faster to communicate between Williamsburg and London than between Williamsburg and Boston. So in a letter to Samuel Adams in June of 74, I proposed a Continental Congress. That September, 55 delegates from 12 colonies met in Philadelphia for seven weeks. We agreed to a ban on British goods and resolved to draft a petition to the King asking for the repeal of the Intolerable Acts and the removal of troops from Boston City. Indeed, we declared all acts passed by Parliament since 1763 to be in violation of the rights of British citizens of America. I suggested that the American colonies armed themselves to prepare for possible military conflict. This the moderates would not compel to agree with. The drafting of the petition to His Majesty fell to John Adams and myself. I have heard that when the King saw it, he sneered, complimented its eloquence and then laid it aside. A fortnight later, he rejected it and ordered Parliament to halt trade, arrest protesters and protect loyalists. Parliament, knowing that some reconciliation might still be possible, instead issued a pardon for repentant rebels. But not for myself. Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Hancock, all the Adamses. Indeed, we would be captured if possible, hanged and then drawn and courted. The most important thing that was decided by the first Continental Congress, however, is that there would be a second Continental Congress the following May. Just before we drew together to meet, war broke out. On April, 1917, 75, the shot heard round the world rang out Lexington Green in Massachusetts. Suddenly my suggestion of a few months earlier that the colonies armed themselves as prepared for war seemed like a sensible precaution. In the following months, the representatives from the 13 colonies began to think and act more like a nation. Though New England militias were adopted into a new Continental Army, the colonies began to send troops to the side and George Washington was named Commander-in-Chief. In the meantime, each of the colonies had to decide how to react to the growing conflict. Many colonies held conventions to draft new frames of government and to propose resolutions to safeguard the life, liberty, and property of their citizens. The Revolutionary Virginia Convention was held in May of 1776 and they passed a resolution instructing Virginia's delegates, such as myself, in the Continental Congress to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent. I then returned to Congress and on June 7th I proposed the following resolution. 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, that it is expedient, fourth-width, to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign alliances, that a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective colonies for their consideration and approbation. As I finished uttering those words, the most important words I had ever uttered in front of the most important men in America was their cheering, with their rounds of hazzah. No, my resolution was met with deafening silence. Everyone was afraid to speak. The thing that we had discussed and whispered about for so long was suddenly out in the light of day, but who would claim it? Even the Massachusetts delegation refused to commit. Oh, John and Samuel Adams were strongly behind me, but other members of their delegation came from small towns and didn't think the time was ripe for declaring separation. Five colonies stood in favor of independence of five colonies against, with the other three undecided. I decided it would be best to postpone the vote and debate until July 2nd. And in the meantime, I went to work trying to convince those worthy gentlemen to follow the path that they knew was the right one. One unexpected ally I had in this was my sister, Alice. She had married a prominent Philadelphia physician, Dr. William Shippen, and her lavishly stock table and wine cellar went a long way to convincing many delegates. The question was not whether, by declaration of independence, we should make ourselves what we were not, but whether we should declare a fact that already existed. When Congress finally voted, 12 states voted for American independence with only New York abstaining. Immediately after the vote, I returned to Virginia, let people like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and John Adams finish the work. The Lees of Virginia had made their mark. I was asked today to speak a little bit about my personal background as well as tell the story of the events leading up to the June 7th resolution. However, I have a few minutes before my next engagement and I know some citizens have posted queries to me in correspondence, so why don't I answer some of those? First question from a follow new winning of Quincy, Massachusetts. And he writes, Mr. Lee, you have said that the Stamp Act was a turning point in your relationship between the mother country and the colonies, yet I understand you actually applied for the position of stamp collector for the colony of Virginia. Would you care to comment on that? Oh my, thank you for bringing that up. It was just as embarrassing the first time it was brought up. The Stamp Act was first proposed in 1764 or more precisely when the Sugar Act was passed, Parliament suggested that they would consider a stamp tax in the colonies. There was at that time opposition to the Sugar, to the Stamp Act as there was to the Sugar Act, but no one could anticipate the intensity that that opposition would take. Even Benjamin Franklin, who is in London, acting as an agent for the colonies, saw no harm in recommending a close friend of his to be the stamp agent in Pennsylvania. Now please keep in mind that this is more than 10 years before the first shots of fire at Lexington and Concord. In our minds, we were still English. This was not the first position I had applied for under the auspices of the Crown. I applied for the position of stamp collector for three reasons. First, it would be best to have a man of honesty and integrity in such a position so as to fairly levy the tax. Second, such an important position may offer opportunity for other advancements. And thirdly, it promised to be a lucrative posting. What I did not initially realize was the deeper implications of such a tax upon the American body. Upon further reflection, I came to realize that this represented a gross overreach on the part of Parliament, exercising an unwarranted and unconstitutional right upon the colonies. However, by the time I realized that my letters of application had already set sail, I had no way to withdraw my name from consideration. As fortune would have it, the post was not to be mine. Instead, the position went to an ally of Speaker Robinson, one George Mercer. Captain Mercer then proceeded to publish not one, but two letters in the Virginia Gazette exposing me as a failed applicant and calling me out as a hypocrite for now speaking out against the Stamp Act. I did whatever any decent, or I think gentlemen or man would do, I apologize. I wrote a letter to the Virginia Gazette in which I said something to the effect of, it was but a few days after my letters applying for the collector's job was sent away that reflecting on the nature of the application I had made, the impropriety of an American being concerned in such an affair struck me in the strongest manner and produced a fixed determination to prevent the success of a measure I now discovered to be in the highest degree pernicious to my country. I consider that to err is certainly the portion of humanity but that it was the business of an honest man to recede from error as soon as he had discovered it. That should have been the end of the matter. However, it was not. My younger brother Arthur had just returned from England and the continent where he had received not one, but two medical degrees. Though we had not laid eyes on each other in years, we had maintained a very close relationship through correspondence. I had kept him abreast of all the things that had been going on here in his home colony. So incensed was he by Captain Mercer's harsh criticism that he challenged him to a duel. Captain Mercer was a war veteran who'd fought alongside George Washington in the French and Indian War. He was also known to be a deadly marksman. My brother Arthur on the other hand had not to my knowledge ever fired a pistol let alone hit anything with one. Yet there he stood on a bluff overlooking the Rappahannock as the sun was coming up at five o'clock in the morning quite ready to die to defend his brother's honor. Captain Mercer never came. The captain later said that he had been delayed and by the time he got there, Arthur was no longer present. I found out long after the fact that the truth of the matter was our mutual friend George Washington had intervened and asked Captain Mercer to spare my brother's life. I went forward with my publishing at the Westmoreland Results and George Mercer was forced to resign his post amid violent protests. Shall I another one? Here we go. This is Constance Winther from Charlestown, South Carolina. She writes, Mr. Lee, being a Virginia, yes I am, and being so intimately involved with the cause of independence, you must have worked closely with Patrick Henry. Can you describe your relationship with him? Well, let me tell you about the first time I ever met Patrick Henry. I hadn't been in the assembly for a few years and had established myself as a prominent voice in my family's faction. The speaker of the house was John Robinson. He was an extremely popular politician who had been in that position for a number of years. He was also the treasurer of the colony. As you can well imagine, vesting a single individual with both of those important roles left much of the power of the government of Virginia in the hands of just one man. Speaker Robinson was also a partner in the Loyal Land Company, which controlled the South Bank of the Ohio River and conflicted with the Ohio Land Company on the North Side, a company that my brothers and I were founding members of. Since we were enemies in business, we were necessarily also enemies in politics. For Speaker Robinson would not hesitate to give preferential treatment to his friends and allies over us. So I rose in the House of Burgesses and proposed that the offices of Speaker and Treasurer be separated. It was at this point that a disheveled looking man of about my own age stood up from where he was on one of the back benches and seconded my motion. At this time, the only real political division between the Burgesses was the split between the Tidewater aristocrats in the eastern part of Virginia and the upland farmers and back woodsmen from the Piedmont Hills to the west. 35 of Virginia's 56 counties were in the Tidewater region and 21 were upland. Obviously these two different geographic reasons would have different needs. They were also made up of different minded individuals. Most of us from the Tidewater region had inherited our property. We were there ruling Virginia by right of birth. Those from the upcountry had carved an existence out of wilderness. They were there by tenacity of spirit. We were also separated by a mode of dress. For the Tidewater aristocrat we wore morning clothes, black, somber clothing and the very finest quality but very plain with our hair or wigs powdered, much like those paintings that you sometimes see on the walls of important people's homes. If you were from the frontier, you probably were wearing your Sunday best which really frankly wasn't very good. The disheveled looking young man who stood up to second my motion that the offices of Speaker and Treasurer Beesundered was even less well put together than his brethren. As a matter of fact, he looked so ragged that when he came to the first session the centuries actually stopped him at the gate. It was not until he had presented his official papers and certificate of election that they grudgingly let him enter the building for the proceedings. And of course that man's name was Patrick Henry. He seconded my motion and the motion passed dealing a substantial blow if not a mortal one to the power of Speaker Robinson and the old guard. It turns out that Mr. Henry and I saw eye to eye on a number of things. Despite our very different backgrounds that began a lifelong friendship based on respect and mutual admiration. Even though the events of the summer of 1776 were momentous, that wasn't the beginning of the story nor was it the end. The fight for freedom is an ongoing struggle. One that must be faced by each successive generation. Though my generation may have declared independence, fought tyranny and formed the union, it's up to you to carry on that fight.