Five delegates served on the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence.
The Second Continental Congress appointed the committee on June 11, 1776. Its members were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. Congress selected representatives with different regional backgrounds and political experience.
Jefferson wrote the initial draft, while the other committee members reviewed it before submission to Congress. The full Congress then made further changes during debate. The committee therefore prepared the text, but it did not independently approve the final document.
The number five is sometimes confused with the thirteen colonies or the 56 eventual signers. Those figures describe different parts of the Declaration’s history. The Committee of Five concerned drafting, the thirteen colonies concerned the declaring political units, and 56 delegates eventually signed the engrossed parchment.