Who chaired the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence celebrated by America250?

Thomas Jefferson chaired the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence celebrated by America250.

The Second Continental Congress appointed the Committee of Five on June 11, 1776, to prepare a declaration explaining the colonies’ decision to separate from Britain. The committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.

Jefferson wrote the principal draft, while the other committee members reviewed and revised it before submitting it to Congress. Congress then debated, edited, and adopted the document. Jefferson’s authorship made him the Declaration’s best-known writer, but the final text was a collective political product shaped by Congress.

John Adams and Benjamin Franklin are sometimes named as the sole authors because they played major roles in the committee and in the independence movement. John Hancock, meanwhile, was president of the Continental Congress and became famous for his large signature, but he did not chair the drafting committee.