Who drafted the principal first draft of the United States Declaration of Independence?

Thomas Jefferson drafted the principal first draft of the United States Declaration of Independence.

On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a Committee of Five to prepare a declaration. The committee included Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Although Adams was a leading advocate of independence, he persuaded the committee to have Jefferson write the initial draft.

Jefferson largely wrote the draft between June 11 and June 28, 1776, while staying in Philadelphia. The other committee members reviewed it, and Congress then edited the text during several days of debate. Congress adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776, after approving the decision for independence through the Lee Resolution two days earlier.

Jefferson was therefore the principal drafter, not the document’s sole author. Congress made substantial changes, including removing a passage criticizing the transatlantic slave trade and shortening the text. The final document was a collective political act by the Continental Congress, even though Jefferson’s prose dominates its historical identity.