What was the five-member group that drafted the United States Declaration of Independence called?

The five-member group that drafted the United States Declaration of Independence was called the Committee of Five.

The Second Continental Congress appointed the committee on June 11, 1776. Its members were Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert R. Livingston of New York.

Although the committee presented the draft and helped revise it, Jefferson wrote the initial version. Congress debated and edited the text before adopting it on July 4, 1776. The committee therefore shaped the document, but it did not act as a modern executive cabinet or independently issue the declaration.

John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were influential in encouraging Jefferson to write the draft. The group’s geographic membership also reflected an effort to involve several colonies in the creation of a document intended to speak for all thirteen. The Committee of Five is especially relevant to America250 because its work produced the founding document whose adoption is being commemorated.