Francis Lightfoot Lee was an American statesman and revolutionist. He was a member of the House of Burgesses in the Colony of Virginia from 1758 to 1768. He served as a Member of the Virginia Senate from 1778 to 1782.
Background
Francis Lightfoot Lee, the son of Thomas and Hannah (Ludwell) Lee, was born at "Stratford, " Westmoreland County, Virginia. He was a member of the most talented group of brothers in Virginia history, which included Richard Henry, Arthur, and William Lee.
Education
He did not attend college but received an excellent education at the hands of tutors.
Career
Leaving the family home in early life, Lee settled on an estate in Loudoun County which he inherited from his father. He was widely read and deeply interested in politics and served in the House of Burgesses from Loudoun County from 1758 to 1768. In 1769 he returned to the lower country, settling in Richmond County, on a plantation called "Menokin. "
He had already made somewhat of a reputation as a public man. He was almost immediately elected a burgess for that county and served in the crucial years immediately preceding the Revolution (1769 - 1776). He was a man of far more political influence than is generally supposed. Much less widely known than his oratorical brother, Richard Henry Lee, he was hardly inferior to him in ability and was an even more ardent revolutionist. It is doubtful whether the coterie in Virginia that was bent on resisting the British government had in it a bolder spirit. He took part in every measure of defiance to the government: he signed the Westmoreland Association against the Stamp Act on February 27, 1766; he was one of the members of the House of Burgesses who threw down the gauntlet to Great Britain on June 22, 1770; in 1773 he was one of the committee that undertook to form the Virginia committee of correspondence; he signed the call for the Virginia convention of August 1774, and was a member of that convention as well as of the convention of March 1775 in which the Virginia Revolution may be said to have begun. In the same year he was chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress, in which body he continued to sit until June 1779.
He was one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, of which he heartily approved. Lee was an influential and useful member of Congress. With farsighted vision he insisted on securing the free navigation of the Mississippi River for American citizens. He could have remained in the Continental Congress indefinitely if his longing for a quiet country life had not prevailed over such urgings of ambition as he had, which were few.
On his return to Virginia, he sat for a time in the Virginia Senate and then retired. Unlike his brother Richard Henry, he was strongly in favor of the federal Constitution. After his retirement from public office he returned to "Menokin, " where he died in the winter of 1797. He would have ranked as one of the leaders of the American Revolution if he had been a good speaker and had been self-seeking. But he was shy and inarticulate in public bodies and his excellent committee work remained unknown to the general public.