Who drafted the principal text of the 1776 Declaration of Independence?

Thomas Jefferson drafted the principal text of the 1776 Declaration of Independence.

Congress appointed a five-member Committee of Five to prepare the document: Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. The committee selected Jefferson to write the initial draft, which he produced in June 1776.

The other committee members and the Continental Congress revised the draft before adoption. Jefferson therefore was the principal author, but the declaration was a congressional document rather than a text issued solely in his name.

Jefferson’s draft drew on Enlightenment ideas about natural rights and government by consent. The final declaration combined those principles with a long list of grievances against King George III. Jefferson later became the third president of the United States, but he was not president when he wrote the declaration; the nation had not yet created that office.