The Lee Resolution formally declared the thirteen colonies independent from Great Britain on July 2, 1776.
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced the proposal to the Second Continental Congress on June 7. It stated that the United Colonies were, and ought to be, free and independent states. Congress debated the motion before approving it on July 2, creating the legal and political break that the Declaration then explained.
The Declaration of Independence was adopted two days later, on July 4. That timing is why July 4 became the national holiday, even though the formal independence vote occurred on July 2. The Declaration gave philosophical and political reasons for the separation rather than serving as the original motion for independence.
The resolution is named for Richard Henry Lee, not for Thomas Jefferson, who later drafted most of the Declaration’s text. America250 commemorates both linked milestones: the independence decision and the document that announced and justified it.