The five-member group appointed to draft the United States Declaration of Independence was the Committee of Five.
The Second Continental Congress appointed the committee on June 11, 1776. Its members were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.
Jefferson wrote the main draft, while the other members reviewed and helped present it to Congress. Congress then debated and edited the text before adopting the Declaration on July 4.
The Committee of Five should not be confused with the broader Second Continental Congress, which represented the colonies and formally approved the document. The committee prepared the draft, but Congress made the Declaration official.