Thomas Jefferson wrote the initial draft of the Declaration of Independence, the document celebrated by America250.
In June 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed the Committee of Five to prepare a declaration explaining independence. The committee included Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Jefferson produced the principal draft, which the committee reviewed before submitting it to Congress.
Congress debated and edited the text in late June and early July. The final version was adopted on July 4, 1776, so the document was a collaborative political work rather than a text written and approved without revision by one person.
Jefferson was a Virginia delegate and later became the third president of the United States. Franklin and Adams helped shape the draft, but neither wrote its initial version.