The Committee of Five drafted the United States Declaration of Independence.
The Second Continental Congress appointed the committee in June 1776 after deciding that a formal explanation of independence was needed. Its members were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. Jefferson produced the initial draft, while the other members reviewed and edited it.
The committee submitted its work to Congress on June 28, 1776. Congress then debated and revised the text before adopting it on July 4. The committee’s role was therefore to prepare the draft, not to act as the final approving body.
The group is sometimes confused with the Continental Congress itself, which debated and adopted the Declaration, or with the earlier committees and associations formed to coordinate colonial resistance. The Committee of Five was a specific, temporary drafting body created for this document. Its work is central to the chain of events commemorated by the 2026 semiquincentennial.