For America250, Thomas Jefferson drafted most of the United States Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson was appointed to the Committee of Five, which was formed by the Second Continental Congress to prepare a declaration explaining the colonies’ break with Great Britain. The committee included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Jefferson.
Jefferson wrote the principal draft, which the committee reviewed and Congress later edited. The final document presents arguments about natural rights, government, consent, and resistance to tyranny before announcing the colonies’ political separation.
Jefferson’s authorship does not mean he wrote the document entirely alone or that Congress accepted every word unchanged. The congressional revisions are an important part of the document’s history, including changes to passages about slavery and the slave trade.