Thomas Jefferson primarily drafted the United States Declaration of Independence for the Committee of Five.
Congress appointed the Committee of Five on June 11, 1776, after deciding to prepare a declaration explaining the independence resolution. Its members were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.
Jefferson wrote the draft in Philadelphia, drawing on ideas about natural rights and government that circulated in eighteenth-century political thought. The other committee members and Congress reviewed and revised the text before its adoption.
Jefferson was not the sole author of every final phrase. Congress removed and changed portions of his draft, including a lengthy passage criticizing the slave trade. The finished document therefore reflects both Jefferson’s drafting and congressional revision.