Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, the founding document celebrated during America250.
On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed the Committee of Five to prepare a declaration explaining the colonies’ decision to separate from Great Britain. The committee included Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman.
Although Adams initially thought the document should be written by someone else, the committee selected Jefferson to produce the first draft. Jefferson worked on it mainly between June 11 and June 28, 1776, drawing on Enlightenment political ideas and earlier statements about rights. The other committee members reviewed the draft, and Congress later edited it substantially.
Jefferson’s authorship does not mean he wrote every word of the final text alone. Congress removed or revised passages during debate, including a lengthy section about slavery and the slave trade. The Declaration was adopted on July 4, 1776, and became one of the central documents remembered in the United States’ 250th-anniversary commemorations.