Which member of the Declaration of Independence’s Committee of Five wrote its original draft?

Thomas Jefferson wrote the original draft of the Declaration of Independence for the Committee of Five.

Congress appointed the five-member committee on June 11, 1776. Its members were Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Although all five were involved in reviewing the work, Jefferson produced the principal draft.

Jefferson wrote the draft between June 11 and June 28. Congress then debated, edited, and approved the text in early July. The committee’s collaborative process means that calling Jefferson the sole author oversimplifies the document’s development, even though he was its main draftsman.

The Declaration drew on Enlightenment ideas about natural rights and government by consent. Its famous principles became central to later American political language, while its list of grievances presented the colonies’ case against King George III.