Richard Henry Lee

Richard Henry Lee (January 20, 1732 – June 19, 1794) was an American statesman from Virginia best known for the motion in the Second Continental Congress calling for the colonies' independence from Great Britain. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and his famous resolution of June 1776 led to the United States Declaration of Independence, which Lee signed. He also served a one-year term as the President of the Continental Congress, and was a U.S. Senator from Virginia from 1789 to 1792, serving during part of that time as one of the first Presidents pro tempore of the United States Senate. He was also related to Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

Read more about Richard Henry Lee:  Early Life, Early Career, American Revolution, Quotes, Political Offices, Marriages and Children, Ancestry, Legacy, Representations in Fiction

Famous quotes containing the words richard, henry and/or lee:

    Words convey the mental treasures of one period to the generations that follow; and laden with this, their precious freight, they sail safely across gulfs of time in which empires have suffered shipwreck and the languages of common life have sunk into oblivion.
    —Anonymous. Quoted in Richard Chevenix Trench, On the Study of Words, lecture 1 (1858)

    Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self- respect, are the qualities which make a real gentleman, or lady, as distinguished from the veneered article which commonly goes by that name.
    —Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    Look, Buster. Don’t you get over-stimulated with me. I’m the little gal that flew all the way from New York to this lousy place, this dark continent.
    —John Lee Mahin (1902–1984)