Five members served on the Committee of Five, the congressional group appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence. Its members were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.
The Second Continental Congress appointed the committee on June 11, 1776, while delegates were considering the Lee Resolution and preparing a statement explaining why the colonies sought independence. Jefferson produced the principal draft, while the other members reviewed and revised it before Congress debated the text.
The committee presented its draft to Congress on June 28. Congress adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776, although the document’s engrossing and signing process continued afterward. The committee itself operated only briefly, from June 11 to July 5.
A frequent misunderstanding is to treat the Committee of Five as the full body that signed the Declaration. It was a drafting committee, not all of Congress; the final document was debated and approved by the Continental Congress.