The Lee Resolution is the document that made the Declaration of Independence necessary. Lee introduced it June 7, 1776. Congress debated it for three weeks. On July 2 they voted yes. Jefferson's Declaration was adopted two days later. The resolution — forty-nine words — is at the National Archives, Yale Avalon, and National Archives DocsTeach. All three URLs confirmed.
Richard Henry Lee was Virginia's ranking delegate to the Second Continental Congress. On June 7, 1776, acting on instructions from the Virginia Convention — which had passed a resolution on May 15 directing Virginia's delegates to propose independence — Lee rose and introduced three resolutions. The first was the resolution for independence. John Adams of Massachusetts seconded it.
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.
The resolution had three parts: a declaration of independence, a call to form foreign alliances, and a plan of confederation. Congress debated it over several days. On June 11, with several delegations still awaiting instructions from their colonies, consideration was postponed until July 1. Congress simultaneously appointed a committee to draft a formal declaration of independence — Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston — on the assumption the resolution would pass. The Journals of the Continental Congress record the June 7 session at Yale Avalon.
On July 1, 1776, Congress convened as a Committee of the Whole to debate the resolution. A preliminary vote showed nine colonies in favor, two against (South Carolina and Pennsylvania), one divided (Delaware — Rodney had not yet arrived), and New York abstaining pending instructions. South Carolina requested one more day. On July 2, the final vote was taken. Twelve colonies voted in favor. New York abstained. The resolution passed.
John Adams wrote to Abigail Adams on July 3, 1776 — the day after the vote — predicting the occasion would be commemorated with celebrations across the country. He expected July 2 to be remembered, not July 4. The Journals of the Continental Congress at the Library of Congress record the July 2 vote. Jefferson's Notes on Proceedings document the deliberations.
The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.
Lee had left Congress before the Declaration was adopted — he returned to Virginia to attend to a sick family member. He wrote Jefferson on July 21, 1776, two weeks after the Declaration was published. He had introduced the resolution that made the Declaration necessary but was not present when it was adopted. The letter is at Founders Online.
It is not yet in my power to return to Philadelphia, family affairs of a very delicate nature requiring my attendance here. I most heartily congratulate you Sir and by you the worthy Congress on the great declaration of the 4th of July. Although I think it could not have been well delayed, yet it would have been agreeable to me that Virginia had been first as she was in the instructions for this glorious measure.
Lee signed the Declaration on August 2, 1776 — on the same day as most of the other signers — after returning to Congress. He signed a document he had set in motion but had not been present to adopt.
Richard Henry Lee served in the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1779 and again from 1784 to 1787. He served as President of the Continental Congress from 1784 to 1785 — the period when the United States was governed under the Articles of Confederation, which Lee also signed. He opposed ratification of the Constitution, arguing it lacked a Bill of Rights and gave too much power to the federal government. His objections — published as the Federal Farmer letters — were among the most widely read Anti-Federalist arguments. When the Constitution was ratified despite his objections, Lee served as one of Virginia's first two United States Senators from 1789 to 1792. He voted for the Bill of Rights.
When the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification in 1787, Lee published a series of letters under the pseudonym "The Federal Farmer" arguing against ratification without a bill of rights. The letters were among the most widely circulated Anti-Federalist arguments in the ratification debate — read alongside the Federalist Papers as the opposing case.
It is to be observed, that when the people shall adopt the proposed constitution it will be their last and supreme act; it will be adopted not by the people of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, &c. but by the people of the United States; and wherever this constitution, or any part of it, shall be incompatible with the ancient customs, rights, the laws or the constitutions heretofore established in those states, it will entirely abolish them and do them away.
The Constitution was ratified. The Bill of Rights — which Lee had demanded — was added in 1791. Lee served as a Senator under the Constitution he had opposed and voted for the amendments he had argued were necessary before ratification.