Thomas Jefferson wrote the main draft of the Declaration of Independence, whose 250th anniversary is marked in 2026.
Jefferson was chosen for the five-member Committee of Five because of his strong writing ability and his reputation as a persuasive Virginia political thinker. He composed the draft in June 1776, drawing on Enlightenment ideas and the colonial case against British rule.
The committee members—Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston—reviewed the draft before presenting it to the Second Continental Congress. Congress made substantial edits, including removing a passage criticizing the slave trade.
Jefferson was the principal author, not the sole contributor. Adams and Franklin helped revise the text, and the full Congress debated and approved the final version on July 4, 1776.