Thomas Jefferson drafted most of the Declaration of Independence, the central document commemorated by America250.
Jefferson was one of five members of the committee Congress appointed to prepare a declaration. The other members were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. The committee assigned the actual drafting to Jefferson, who produced a document that the other members and Congress then reviewed and revised.
The final text was not simply Jefferson’s untouched manuscript. Congress removed and changed passages, including a lengthy section criticizing the transatlantic slave trade and slavery. Franklin and Adams made edits before the draft went before Congress, and the delegates approved a revised version on July 4, 1776.
Jefferson later kept the famous writing desk associated with the document’s composition. Although he wrote the main draft, the declaration was an act of Congress, not a document adopted by Jefferson alone. That distinction is important when identifying its authorship.