Who wrote the initial draft of the Declaration of Independence for the 1776 Congress?

Thomas Jefferson wrote the initial draft of the Declaration of Independence for the 1776 Congress.

Congress appointed a five-member drafting committee on June 11, 1776. It included Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. The committee asked Jefferson to prepare the first draft, which he largely wrote between June 11 and June 28.

Congress then debated and edited the text before adopting it on July 4. Jefferson was the principal drafter, but the final document was a product of committee work and congressional revision rather than a document approved exactly as he first wrote it.

This distinction matters because Franklin and Adams were influential advocates for independence and members of the drafting committee. George Washington, however, was not a member of that committee and did not write the Declaration. Jefferson later became the third president of the United States.