Richard Lee's Timeline: Life, Photos, and Key Events

"The rights are built on a fourfold foundation; on nature, on the British constitution, on charters, and on immemorial usage . . . lay[ing] our rights upon the broadest bottom, the ground of nature."

"Resolved: That these colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved of 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. That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances. That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective colonies for their consideration and approbation."

"It is certainly true that a popular government cannot flourish without virtue in the people."

"It has hitherto been supposed a fundamental maxim that in governments rightly balanced, the different branches of a legislature should be unconnected, and that the legislative and executive powers should be separate."

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."