LEE, RICHARD HENRY ( American states man and orator, was born at Stratford, Westmoreland county (Va.), on Jan. 20, 1732, one of the six distinguished sons of Thomas Lee (d. 1750), a descendant of an old Cavalier family. Richard Henry Lee received an academic education in England, travelled, and returned to Virginia in 1752, having inherited a fine property from his father, and applied himself to varied studies. When 25 he was appointed justice of the peace of Westmoreland county, and in the same year was chosen a member of the Vir ginia house of burgesses, in which he served from 1758 to 1775. His first speech was in strong opposition to slavery, which he proposed eventually to abolish by imposing a heavy tax on all further importations. He early allied himself with the Whig ele ment in Virginia, and in the years immediately preceding the War of Independence was a conspicuous opponent of the arbitrary measures of the British ministry. In 1768, in a letter to John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, he suggested a private correspondence among the friends of liberty in the different colonies, and in 1773 he became a member of the Virginia committee of correspondence.
Lee was a delegate to the First Continental Congress in Phila delphia in and prepared the address to the people of British America, and the second address to the people of Great Britain. He introduced in Congress on June 7, 1776, the famous resolu tions: (I) "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"; (2) "that it is expedient to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign alliances"; and (3) "that a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the re spective Colonies for their consideration and approbation." His first resolution was adopted on July 2, and the Declaration of Independence was adopted two days later. Lee was in Congress
from 1774 to 1780; a member of the Virginia house of delegates in 1780-84 and 1786-87; was in Congress again from 1784 87, having been president in 1784-86; and was one of the first U.S. senators chosen from Virginia. Though opposed to the Con stitution because of what he regarded as its infringements upon the independent power of the States, he accepted the place of senator in hope of bringing about amendments, and proposed the Tenth Amendment in substantially the form in which it was adopted. He retired from public life in 1792, and died at Chan tilly, in Westmoreland county, on June 19, See the Life (1825), by his grandson, R H. Lee; and Letters (i9io), edited by J. C. Ballagh.
His brother, WILLIAM LEE (1739-1795), accompanied an other brother, Arthur Lee (q.v.), to England in 1766 to engage in mercantile pursuits, joined the Wilkes faction, and in 1775 was elected an alderman of London. In April 1777, however, he re ceived notice of his appointment by the committee of secret correspondence in America to act as a commercial agent at Nantes. He went to Paris and became involved in his brother's opposition tc Franklin and Deane. In May 1777 Congress chose him com missioner to the courts of Vienna and Berlin, but he gained rec ognition at neither. In Sept. 1778, at Aix-la-Chapelle, he nego tiated a plan of a treaty with Jan de Neufville, who represented Van Berckel, pensionary of Amsterdam. A copy of this proposed treaty, falling into the hands of the British on the capture of Henry Laurens (q.v.), led to Great Britain's declaration of war against the Netherlands in Dec. 1780. Lee was recalled from his mission to Vienna and Berlin in June 1779. He resigned his post as an alderman of London in Jan. 178o, and returned to Virginia about 1784.