Which five-member committee prepared the Declaration of Independence draft?

The Committee of Five prepared the draft of the Declaration of Independence.

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 initial draft, while the committee presented it to Congress for debate and revision.

The committee’s name describes its membership, not the number of colonies or the number of final signers. Congress edited the draft substantially, including removing passages that criticized the slave trade and changing other language. The final text was approved on July 4, 1776.

The Committee of Five is important because it shows that the Declaration was produced through both individual drafting and collective political deliberation. Jefferson is remembered as its principal writer, but the document became an official act of the Second Continental Congress rather than a private essay.