Five people served on the Committee of Five that drafted the United States Declaration of Independence.
The Second Continental Congress created the committee on June 11, 1776, to prepare a document justifying separation from Great Britain. Its members were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.
Jefferson wrote the principal draft, but the committee’s other members reviewed it before it went to Congress. Congress then debated and revised the text before approving it on July 4.
The committee is sometimes confused with the thirteen colonies or the 56 eventual signers. Those numbers refer to the colonies represented and the delegates who signed the engrossed document, not the drafting committee.