business, no member be permitted to say any thing more upon this subject, than that Congress have taken such steps as they judged necessary for the purpose of obtaining foreign Alliance." Saturday, November 15, 1777, Congress approves the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union for ratification by the individual States. See also Halifax Resolves, the first colonial government resolution calling for the nation's independence from England, passed by the North Carolina Provincial Congress on April 12, 1776 in Halifax, North Carolina Citations References Boyd, Julian P. The Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text. Originally published 1945. Revised edition edited by Gerard W. Gawalt. University Press of New England, 1999. . Burnett, Edward Cody. The Continental Congress. New York: Norton, 1941. Hogeland, William. Declaration: The Nine Tumultuous Weeks When America Became Independent, May 1-July 4, 1776. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. . Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf, 1997. . External links Text of Lee's Resolution from the Avalon Project at Yale Law School Lee Resolution (1776), one of the "100 milestone documents" of the Our Documents initiative, published by the U.S. government Presentation of the Lee Resolution from National Archives and Records Administration as part of their Charters of Freedom presentation of the Declaration of Independence. 1776 documents 1776 in politics 1776 in the United States Documents of the American Revolution Legal history of the United States United States resolutions