Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, central to America250 history.
The Second Continental Congress appointed the Committee of Five to prepare a document explaining the colonies’ decision to separate from Great Britain. Jefferson drafted the document, while John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston reviewed and edited it.
Jefferson’s draft drew on Enlightenment ideas about natural rights and government by consent. Congress changed some wording, including removing a passage criticizing the slave trade, before adopting the final text on July 4, 1776.
Jefferson was not the sole contributor, and he did not personally write every word in the final version. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams were especially important in revising the draft. Jefferson later served as the third U.S. president from 1801 to 1809, but his authorship of the Declaration remains his most famous Revolutionary-era role.