Who primarily drafted the United States Declaration of Independence?

Thomas Jefferson primarily drafted the United States Declaration of Independence.

Congress appointed Jefferson to the five-member Committee of Five on June 11, 1776. The other members were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. The committee asked Jefferson to prepare the original draft, which he largely wrote between June 11 and June 28.

Congress then debated and edited the draft before approving the final Declaration on July 4. Jefferson’s authorship therefore does not mean every word remained unchanged. The committee and Congress shaped the document’s final language.

Jefferson was a Virginia delegate in his early thirties when he wrote it. The Declaration’s famous statement about equality and natural rights later became one of the most influential passages in American political history, even though the document also reflected the political compromises of its era.