The Declaration of Independence was a proclamation by the Second Continental Congress. Following the model of the colonial assemblies, which in turn used the British Parliament as a guide to legislative procedure, Congress delegated its tasks to committees. In keeping with this practice, after Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution on June 7, 1776, “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States,” Congress discussed the matter and decided on June 10 to appoint a committee of five of its members “to prepare a declaration to the effect” of Lee’s resolution. No vote on the resolution would be taken for three weeks, which would allow for some of the colonies’ delegations to receive instructions from their assemblies. Meanwhile the committee would draft the declaratory statement to support the resolution, “that no time be lost.”

The committee appointed on June 11 to draft the Declaration consisted of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert R. Livingston of New York. Jefferson was known for his writing skills as displayed by his Summary View of the Rights of British America in 1774 and his work with John Dickinson in preparing the 1775 statement by Congress called the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. It was also good for regional balance to have a member of the committee from Virginia, which was taking a strong role in the resistance to Britain. Adams later recalled that Jefferson received the largest number of votes when Congress selected the committee. Adams was one of the most vocal advocates for independence, as was Franklin, and they represented populous and important colonies. Sherman had been a strong critic of British governance since the Stamp Act. Livingston was the key member of New York’s delegation in Congress and was working to get instructions from the colonial assembly to allow the delegation to cast its vote for Lee’s resolution.

Each of them except Franklin served on other committees during the period in which they prepared the declaration. Because there was no executive branch with departments of war, state, and finance, Congress handled everything that needed to be done for the combined colonies to prosecute the war for independence. Congress also, in those weeks of June 1776, tasked committees with developing plans for treaties with other nations and for articles of confederation. Committee work was done outside the regular sessions of Congress, which were generally held every day of the week except Sunday. “We were all in haste,” Adams recalled in a letter to Timothy Pickering in 1823, and “Congress was impatient.”

Franklin was the exception. Suffering from “a severe Fit of the Gout,” he likely spent the entire period in which the Declaration was drafted at a friend’s house outside Philadelphia and did not attend sessions of Congress or committee meetings. Franklin did contribute to the drafting process.

The surviving evidence gives only an incomplete picture of the committee’s work in creating the draft. The record made closest to the time was an account by Jefferson of the proceedings of Congress from June 7 to August 1, 1776. He apparently wrote that before June 1, 1783. All he said there of the process was that “the committee for drawing the declaration of Independance desired me to do it,” and that “it was accordingly done” and approved by the committee before Jefferson presented the committee’s report—which was the draft Declaration of Independence—to Congress on June 28.

Adams, in his autobiography probably written in 1805, recalled: “The Committee had several meetings, in which were proposed the Articles of which the Declaration was to consist, and minutes made of them.” Although there is no other record of the committee’s framing out of a general outline of the declaration, their doing so would fit with standard practice for a legislative committee of that time tasked with producing a report. Adams went on to say that the committee made him and Jefferson a “Sub Committee” to “draw them”—the proposed articles of the declaration—“up in form, and cloath them in a proper Dress.” Adams and Jefferson discussed it, deciding that Jefferson would do the writing, and Jefferson “in a day or two produced to me his Draught.” Adams again referred to the subcommittee in his letter to Pickering in 1823, which Pickering quoted in a July 4th address in Salem, Massachusetts.

Jefferson saw a printed version of Pickering’s address and wrote to his friend James Madison to say that his recollection differed from Adams’s. There had been no subcommittee, he asserted—the committee had simply selected him to prepare the draft. He did note, however, that he had wanted Adams and Franklin to give him their reactions before the full committee reviewed the draft. Franklin was not in Philadelphia. Adams made a copy of the draft before it received revisions by the committee as a group (see Jefferson’s “original Rough draught”). It would seem, then, that whether or not Jefferson and Adams were a formally designated subcommittee, Adams may have been correct in remembering that he was the first member of the committee to see Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration.

Although the date by which Jefferson completed the draft is not known, evidence suggests that Adams, Sherman, and Livingston reviewed it by June 21. That supposition comes from a note that Jefferson wrote to Franklin, dated only “Friday morn.” It reads:

The inclosed paper has been read & with some small alterations approved of by the committee. will Doctr. Franklyn be so good as to peruse it & suggest such alterations as his more enlarged view of the subject will dictate? the paper having been returned to me to change a particular sentiment or two, I propose laying it again before the committee tomorrow morning, if Doctr. Franklyn can think of it before that time.

Jefferson’s brief communication to Franklin did not state that the “inclosed paper” was the Declaration of Independence. However, in notes to the document in Volume 1 of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, the editors reviewed in detail the times that Jefferson and Franklin were on a committee together and Jefferson might have been responsible for preparing a draft document for the committee. They concluded that this brief letter was indeed probably related to the preparation of the Declaration. Later, the editors of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin noted that there were two Fridays during the period in which the Declaration was drafted, June 14 and June 21, and concluded that the 14th was too soon after the appointment of the committee by Congress for Jefferson to have prepared the draft and received comments from other committee members. Therefore, the “Friday morn.” was likely June 21, 1776.

It is certain that Franklin saw the draft, because there are some changes marked on it in his handwriting, and Jefferson also put notes in the margin identifying them as Franklin’s changes. Jefferson did the same for changes made by Adams on the draft.

It is likely then that Adams saw the draft at least twice, and Franklin at least once. Jefferson’s note to Franklin suggests that Sherman and Livingston reviewed the draft and then saw it again when Jefferson showed them the revisions.

According to the journals of Congress, on Friday, June 28, the committee “brought in a draught which was read.” Congress did not sit on Saturday or Sunday, June 29 and 30. On Monday, July 1, after dealing with several other matters, the delegates formed themselves into a committee of the whole to resume consideration of Lee’s resolution “respecting independency.” That discussion continued on July 2. Congress agreed to the resolution that day and began consideration of the Declaration, which continued on July 3 and again on the 4th. In its discussions, Congress made changes to the text, but there is no record of the debate, or of which members suggested the alterations. That work ended on July 4, when Congress approved the Declaration and it was read in its finished form.

Congress immediately voted for the Declaration to be “authenticated and printed.” The authentication was provided by the signature of John Hancock as president of Congress. The remaining delegates signed an engrossed parchment copy on and after August 2. The copy that Hancock signed on July 4 has not survived, but the first official printed copies have his name certifying the Declaration “by Order and in Behalf of the Congress,” with an attestation by Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress. Those first printed copies were produced at the press of Philadelphia printer John Dunlap. Congress ordered that copies be sent to the states’ governing bodies and the Declaration be “proclaimed” to the army and “in each of the United States.” The first publication by a newspaper was in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on July 6.

Benjamin Franklin to George Washington, 21 June 1776, in Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 22:484-5.

Jefferson to Benjamin Franklin, [21 June 1776], in Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1:404-6; in Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 22:485-6. Manuscript in the collections of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.

Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Rush, 26 June 1776, in Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 22:491.

Thomas Jefferson, Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress, [7 June to 1 Aug. 1776], in Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1:299-329.

Timothy Pickering, Col. Pickering’s Observations introductory to reading the Declaration of Independence, at Salem, July 4, 1823 (Salem, Mass., 1823).

L. H. Butterfield, Leonard C. Faber, and Wendell D. Garrett, eds., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:335-7.

Rough Journals, Vol. 3, June 28-July 4, 1776. Manuscript journal in the Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, at the National Archives. The journals have been printed as Worthington C. Ford and others, eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, 23 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1904-1937), 5:491-516.

Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New York, 1997), 98-104.