Editing Thomas Sim Lee (section)

===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>