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Gilder Lehrman Document Number: GLC 3421
Title: Richard H. Lee to Landon Carter
Author: Richard H. Lee
Year: 1776
Type of document: letter
Quotation: "It is not choice...but necessity that calls for Independence"
Annotation:
Richard Lee (1732-1794), writing to a fellow Virginian, calls for American independence, a goal suddenly and effectively popularized in January 1776 by Thomas Paine's anonymous pamphlet, Common Sense. Lee subsequently introduced the resolution in Congress "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states." Congress appointed a committee--consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman--to draft a declaration of independence in case Lee's resolution was adopted. On July 2, Congress approved Lee's resolution and two days later adopted the final draft of the Declaration of Independence.
Full Text:
It is not choice then, but necessity that calls for Independence as the only means by which foreign Alliances can be obtained; and a proper confederation by which internal pea[ce] and Union may be secured. Contrary to our earnest, early, and repeated petitions for peace, liberty and safety, our enemies press us with war, threaten us with danger and Slavery.
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