Which five-person committee drafted the Declaration of Independence for Congress?

The Committee of Five drafted the Declaration of Independence for Congress.

Congress appointed the committee on June 11, 1776. Its members were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.

Jefferson wrote the initial draft, while the other members reviewed and discussed it. Congress then debated, edited, and adopted the document on July 4. The committee therefore prepared the draft, but Congress as a whole approved the final text.

The committee is sometimes confused with the Second Continental Congress or the later committee that arranged the engrossed copy. Those were different bodies serving different roles in the Declaration’s creation.