Richard Henry Lee's Resolution.

On Friday, 7 June 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented Congress with a resolution from Virginia's Convention "that these United colonies are 8c of right ought to be free 8c 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 8c ought to be totally dissolved. . . ." Lee's resolution called on Congress to begin taking measures to secure foreign assistance and to form a confederation to bind the colonies more closely together. The Congress, busy with other matters, put off discussion until the following day, which it spent debating independence. On the one side, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, John Dickinson of Delaware, Robert Livingston of New York, and the Rutledges of South Carolina, argued that the time was not right for independence. While New...