FatherLee Advice



On this day in seventeen seventy six

A man named Lee would advise a fix

For all that'd gone wrong in years before

Lee proposed a Declaration to settle scores



Seeing that a proclamation of American independence

Was the only sure way to sever the two governments

For simple resistance to British political and economic measures

Weren't enough to create a country completely untethered



So Richard Henry Lee made the timely suggestion 

To those who'd become leaders of the new nation

Including fellow Virginians Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson

That the statement was required to initiate and effect the division



Offering the resolution to the Continental Congress on this date

Which then would create the vehicle that evolved into the great ...

Declaration of Independence, written by five statesmen

Penned by Jefferson, and then signed in front of them



And then, a few years later, Richard Henry Lee

Would propose something else that became history

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution's Bill of Rights 

Was Lee's alone ... contributed after considered insight



For it brings back to the People all of the other rights

Not specifically proclaimed by Federal power's might

And those which are prohibited by it ... to the states

Fall squarely back upon each of the People's own plates ...



- Tristram



© Christopher W. Thomas

11:30am Monday, June 7th, 1999