Editing Thomas Sim Lee (section)

==Public life==
Lee was a member of the provincial council by 1777.
During the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]], he backed the [[patriot cause]], and organized a [[local militia]] in which he served as [[Colonel (United States)|colonel]]

Governor Lee's wife, [[Mary Digges Lee]], also rallied the women of Maryland to raise money in support of the war effort. She then established a correspondence with General [[George Washington]], asking how these resources could be put to best use. General Washington responded suggesting that the money raised be put toward the purchase of much-needed shirts and black neck clothes for the troops in the Southern army. He expressed gratitude to Mrs. Lee for the ''"patriotic exertions of the ladies of Maryland in favor of the army"''.
<ref name=Wife>{{cite web|url=http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/educ/exhibits/womenshall/html/mlee.html|title=Mary Digges Lee, Marylandomen's Hall of Fame|publisher=|accessdate=August 1, 2016|archive-date=October 4, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004152646/http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/educ/exhibits/womenshall/html/mlee.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===American Revolutionary war===
Thomas Sim Lee participated in the [[Annapolis Convention (1774–1776)|Annapolis Convention]] in the mid-1770s, which produced a constitution for Maryland and transformed the colony into a state. On July 26, 1775, he was one of the signatories of the [[Annapolis Convention (1774–1776)|Declaration of the Association of the Freemen of Maryland]], an influential statement in the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]].

Lee won his first state elective office in 1777, and served for two years in the Maryland Legislature.

===First gubernatorial term===
Fellow Maryland legislators elected Lee governor in 1779. He was reelected in 1780 and 1781. During his first tenure, issues regarding the war effort were dealt with. He won wide praise for his logistical abilities as governor. Lee consistently procured fresh troops and supplies for the [[Continental Army]]. [[George Washington]] was Lee's friend, and learning of the plan to pin down [[General Cornwallis|Cornwallis]], Lee exerted all his energies to support the American troops. After completing his term, Lee was forbidden to stand for re-election, and so left office on November 22, 1782.

===Articles of Confederation and Continental Congressman===
[[Image:Thomas Sim Lee Signature.JPG|thumb|235px|left|Signature of Governor Thomas Sim Lee on Act of Maryland legislature to ratify the Articles]]
As Governor of Maryland, Thomas Sim Lee signed the Act on February 2, 1781, whereby the [[Maryland State House|Maryland Legislature]] ratified the [[Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union]]. As Maryland was the 13th and final state to ratify the Articles, the act established the ''requisite unanimous consent'' for the formation of a [[Perpetual Union]] of the states.
Maryland had previously held out and refused to ratify the Articles until every state had ceded its [[western land claims]]. After Governor [[Thomas Jefferson]] signed the Act of the [[Virginia]] legislature on January 2, 1781, to grant these concessions the way forward for Maryland was cleared. On this second day of February, a Friday, as the last piece of business during the afternoon Session, "among engrossed Bills" was "signed and sealed by the Governor, in the Senate Chamber, in the presence of the members of both Houses...an Act to empower the delegates of this state in Congress to subscribe and ratify the articles of confederation." The Senate then adjourned "to the first Monday in August next". The formal signing of the Articles by the Maryland delegates took place in [[Philadelphia]] at noon time on March 1, 1781. With these events, the Articles entered into force and the United States came into being as a united and [[Sovereignty|sovereign]] nation.

After his first gubernatorial term, Thomas Sim Lee represented [[Maryland]] as a delegate to the [[Continental Congress]] in 1783 and 1784. He returned to the Maryland house of delegates in 1787. He declined the opportunity to serve in the convention that drafted the [[US Constitution|Constitution of the United States]], but served in the state convention that ratified the Constitution in 1788. Lee voted for Washington's second term as a Federalist presidential elector.
Lee was a delegate to the [[List of delegates to the Maryland State Convention (1788)|Maryland State Convention of 1788]], to vote whether Maryland should ratify the proposed [[Constitution of the United States]].<ref name= manual>{{cite book |title= Maryland Manual 1914–1915: A Compendium of Legal, Historical and Statistical Information relating to the State of Maryland |author= Secretary of State of Maryland |publisher= The Advertiser-Republican |location= [[Annapolis, Maryland|Annapolis, Maryland, USA]] |year= 1915 }}</ref>
  
===Second gubernatorial term===

In 1792, Lee was again elected governor of Maryland. He was reelected to a second term in 1793, and to a third term in 1794. During this final tenure, the state militia was established, and the [[Whiskey rebellion]] suppressed. Lee left office on November 14, 1794. Later that same year, he declined a seat in the U.S. Senate. He also declined a third tenure as governor in 1798.