Thomas Jefferson drafted most of the United States Declaration of Independence, central to the America250 story.
Congress appointed a Committee of Five to prepare a declaration explaining the colonies’ decision to separate from Great Britain. The committee included Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston, but Jefferson wrote the principal draft.
Congress then debated and edited the text in late June and early July 1776. Some passages were shortened or removed, including Jefferson’s criticism of the slave trade and slavery-related grievances. The final document was therefore a congressional product, even though Jefferson supplied most of its original wording.
Jefferson was 33 years old when he drafted the Declaration. He later served as the third president of the United States, but his presidential career came decades after the document’s creation.