The Lee Resolution formally declared the United Colonies independent before the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
Introduced by Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee, the resolution was approved by the Second Continental Congress on July 2, 1776. It stated that the colonies should be free and independent states and that political connection with Great Britain should be dissolved.
Congress then spent several days debating and revising the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted on July 4. That sequence explains the distinction between July 2 as the legal independence vote and July 4 as the date celebrated by Independence Day.
A common mix-up is treating the Declaration as the moment Congress first voted for independence. The Declaration explained and announced the reasons for separation, while the Lee Resolution supplied the formal motion. The 250th anniversary in 2026 is conventionally tied to July 4, but the Lee Resolution is an essential earlier milestone in the same story.