Which future U.S. president wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence?

Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Congress appointed the five-member Committee of Five on June 11, 1776, to prepare a declaration. Its members were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. The committee decided that Jefferson would write the initial draft.

Jefferson worked on the document in Philadelphia between June 11 and June 28. Adams and Franklin reviewed the draft, and Congress later edited it substantially. The final document was therefore the product of committee work and congressional revision, even though Jefferson is regarded as its principal author.

Jefferson was a Virginia delegate in 1776 and became the third president of the United States in 1801. John Adams, another committee member, became the second president. Benjamin Franklin never served as president, despite his prominent role in the independence movement.