Who drafted the initial version of the Declaration of Independence?

Thomas Jefferson drafted the initial version of the Declaration of Independence.

In June 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a five-member committee to prepare a declaration. The committee included Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. Jefferson, then a Virginia delegate, wrote the principal draft at a rented house in Philadelphia.

The text was not accepted unchanged. The committee reviewed it, and Congress debated and edited it from June 28 through July 4, 1776. Congress removed or altered passages, including a lengthy section criticizing the transatlantic slave trade and a complaint about the presence of foreign mercenaries. The final document therefore reflects both Jefferson’s prose and Congress’s collective decisions.

Jefferson later became the third president of the United States, while Adams and Franklin also became presidents. Their participation in the drafting committee can cause confusion, but Jefferson is the standard answer to who wrote the initial draft.