Who wrote the principal draft of the Declaration of Independence celebrated by America250?

Thomas Jefferson wrote the principal draft of the Declaration of Independence celebrated by America250.

Jefferson was one of five members of the committee appointed by the Second Continental Congress to prepare a declaration. The other members were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. The committee selected Jefferson to produce the main draft.

He wrote the draft in Philadelphia in June 1776, drawing on ideas about natural rights and government that were influential in eighteenth-century political thought. The committee reviewed it, and Congress then made substantial edits before approving the final wording.

Jefferson was the principal writer, not the only person involved in creating the document. Franklin and Adams suggested changes, and the full Congress debated and revised the text. Jefferson later served as the third president of the United States, but his role in the declaration came decades before his presidency.