Who wrote the main draft of the Declaration of Independence commemorated by America250?

Thomas Jefferson wrote the main draft of the Declaration of Independence commemorated by America250.

Jefferson was chosen for the drafting Committee of Five because of his writing ability and political views. He produced the draft in June 1776, drawing on ideas about natural rights, government, and resistance to tyranny that circulated in eighteenth-century political thought.

The document was not solely Jefferson’s work. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston served with him on the committee, and the Continental Congress revised the draft before adopting it. Jefferson therefore receives authorship credit for the principal draft, while Congress gave the final text its institutional authority.

Jefferson later served as the third president of the United States. His role in the Declaration is distinct from his later presidency, and he was not the person who presided over Congress or wrote the Constitution.