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Show Old Masters Richard H. Lee By C.C.G. IN HIS niche tho statue of Richard Henry Leo stands among the immortals who created our brow, for he was braver than many an one who has gone into history as a hero; he was wiser free government, and there is a halo about his than man? whom the world holds as statesmen, while he possessed an intuition more subtle than any of his associates. Moreover, in scholarship and in the gift of setting to words high thoughts he had scarcely a peer' among all the trained minds around ihim. He was born in Westmoreland county, Virginia, January 20, 1732. Washington as born in the same county thirty-three days later. Lee's first public act was to raise a company of men and tender his services to General Brad-1 Brad-1 dock, who declined the offer. He was elected to I the House of Burgesses, but at first he was over come by an almost unconquerable diffidence and J' said little. But when a mighty effort was in augurated to defeat a measure which proposed to lay an almost prohibitory duty on the importation importa-tion of slaves, he aroused himself and made a speech pointing out the evils and the shame of human traffic in eloquence so lofty that his opponents op-ponents trembled as they listened. When the house of commons was considering the plan of extending taxation in the American colonies, Lee was the first to scent the danger and sound the alarm. He helped Patrick Henry to frame his resolutions against the stamp act, and in several published essays enlightened the people of what was being done and what to expect. He was the first man to propose the independence indepen-dence of the colonies. His pen was very busy in those days and its point was tipped with fire. In 1772, as a member of the House of Burgesses, Lee proposed the famous "Committee on Correspondence," Corre-spondence," whose appeals aroused the whole country. In 1774 Lee was elected to the first Continental Congress and was chairman of the committee to prepare addresses to the king, the people of England and the colonies. The last address was from his pen. In 1775 he was unanimously elected to the Virginia legislature. In 177G ho was again in congress and introduced the famous resolution, ''That these United Colonies are and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and Great Britain is and ought to be dissolved;" dis-solved;" and he backed the resolution by one of tho most forcible, refined displays of eloquence ever listened to. When tho committee to draft the Declaration of Independence was appointed, Leo, who would have been chairman, had been called home by illness in his family, and Jefferson was placed at tho head of the committee. Ho continued to serve in congress until 17S0 when, having been given tho command of the militia of his native county, ho took command and proved as capable in the army as he had been in civil life. (He was again elected to congress in 1784 and was chosen president of that body. He helped frame the federal constitution. He was a United States senator for two years under tho new constitution, then because of ill health ho was forced to resign. The senate passed a most flattering resolution of thanks for his eminent services to his country. He went back to his native county and lingered in quiet there until his death, October 22, 1794, aged G2 years. Ho has been called the Cicero of Airorica, because of his scholarship and refined eloquence, and because of his lofty integrity and patriotism. He was a perpetual inspiration to lus countrymen country-men for twelve years, from 1768 to 1780. His ppii was nn invocation to them, his voice a clarion call and it kept sounding on and on and never in the darkest days of the war faltered but rather rang out full and true to the last. His was about the finest brain of his ago and his heart was great enough to encompass his whole country. His grave is rightfully a shrine in his native state. |