Thomas Jefferson was the principal drafter of the Declaration of Independence, the founding document at the heart of America250.
In June 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a Committee of Five to prepare a declaration explaining separation from Great Britain. Jefferson wrote the initial draft, while Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, 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 portions of the text, including removing a passage criticizing the transatlantic slave trade.
Jefferson was a Virginia delegate and later became the third president of the United States. Although he wrote the initial draft, the final Declaration was a collective congressional document rather than Jefferson’s unchanged personal composition.