Thomas Jefferson. That’s the name everyone knows. It’s the answer on every history quiz, the name on the monument, and the face on the two-dollar bill. But if you’re asking who wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, the story is actually a lot more crowded, stressful, and messy than a single man sitting in a quiet room with a quill.
It was a team effort. Kind of.
Picture Philadelphia in June 1776. It’s sweltering. The flies from the nearby livery stable are biting through people’s silk stockings. The Continental Congress is essentially a high-stakes pressure cooker. They knew that if they signed a document declaring independence, they weren't just making a political statement; they were signing their own death warrants for treason. Against that backdrop, a "Committee of Five" was tasked with explaining why the colonies were breaking up with King George III.
The Committee of Five and the Drafting Process
The Congress didn’t just trust one guy to wing it. They appointed a powerhouse squad: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.
Now, why Jefferson? Honestly, he wasn't the first choice for everyone. John Adams was the driving force of the independence movement, but Adams was also—by his own admission—obnoxious and unpopular. He knew if he wrote it, the Southern colonies might reject it just out of spite. Jefferson, on the other hand, was a Virginian. That was key. Having a Virginian lead the charge helped bridge the gap between the North and South. Plus, Jefferson had a reputation for a "masterly pen."
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Jefferson spent about seventeen days hunkered down in his rented rooms at the Graff House. He worked on a portable writing desk he’d designed himself. He didn't have Google. He didn't have a library. He had his brain, a few notes, and a deep-seated anger toward the British Crown.
What Jefferson’s First Draft Actually Looked Like
When we talk about who wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, we have to look at the "Rough Draft." This wasn't the polished parchment you see under glass at the National Archives. It was a scratchpad. Jefferson’s original version was wordier, angrier, and included a massive section attacking the slave trade—which was later cut.
Adams and Franklin were the first "editors." They didn't rewrite the whole thing, but they nipped and tucked. Franklin, for instance, is famously credited with changing Jefferson’s "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" to the much punchier "We hold these truths to be self-evident." It’s a small change, but it shifted the document from a religious-sounding decree to one based on Enlightenment logic.
The Substantial Changes You Weren't Taught in School
After the committee finished, the document went to the full Continental Congress. This is where things got brutal for Jefferson. He sat there in silence while the delegates spent two days ripping his prose apart.
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They made about 86 changes.
They cut roughly a quarter of the text.
The most significant omission was a long, passionate passage blaming King George III for the transatlantic slave trade. Jefferson called it a "cruel war against human nature itself." Why was it cut? Basically, South Carolina and Georgia weren't having it. They refused to join the rebellion if that clause stayed in. Since the colonies needed a unanimous vote to survive a war against the British Empire, the passage was scrapped. It’s one of the great "what ifs" of American history. If the person who wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence had gotten his way on that clause, the next century of American history might have looked very different.
Why the "First Draft" Matters Today
We often think of the Declaration as a divine revelation. It wasn't. It was a legal brief. It was a PR document intended to convince France and Spain that the Americans were serious so they’d send money and ships.
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When Jefferson sat down to write, he wasn't trying to be original. He later admitted he wasn't aiming for "new principles, or new arguments." He was trying to capture the "American mind." He borrowed heavily from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason, and the philosophies of John Locke. Locke’s ideas about "life, liberty, and property" were common knowledge among the educated elite of the time. Jefferson just swapped "property" for "the pursuit of happiness," which, let’s be real, sounds way better on a poster.
The Nuance of Authorship
If you want to be a pedant at your next dinner party, you could argue that Thomas Jefferson wrote the composition, but the Continental Congress wrote the Declaration.
Jefferson was actually pretty salty about the edits for the rest of his life. He used to send copies of his original draft to friends just to show them how the Congress had "mangled" his work. He felt the revisions took the soul out of it. Most historians today disagree, noting that the Congress’s edits made the document more concise and less like a personal rant.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs and Researchers
Understanding the origins of the Declaration isn't just about trivia; it's about understanding how political consensus is built. If you want to dive deeper into the primary sources, here is how you should approach it:
- Compare the "Rough Draft" to the final version. The Library of Congress has high-resolution scans of Jefferson's "Fragment" and the "Report of the Committee of Five." Seeing the cross-outs and margin notes tells you more about the American Revolution than any textbook ever could.
- Read George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights. If you want to see exactly where Jefferson got his "inspiration," read Mason’s work side-by-side with the Declaration’s preamble. The similarities are striking and provide a great look into how ideas circulated in the 18th century.
- Trace the edits on the slavery clause. Examine the debates of the Continental Congress from June 28 to July 4, 1776. Understanding why that section was removed provides crucial context for the constitutional crises that followed decades later.
- Visit the Graff House site. If you're ever in Philadelphia, go to the corner of 7th and Market. Seeing the physical space where the draft was written—a simple brick house away from the noise of the city—helps humanize the process.
The person who wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was a man under immense pressure, working within a committee of geniuses, and ultimately answered to a room full of politicians. It was a masterpiece of compromise, for better or worse.
To truly understand the document, look past the finished parchment and look at the ink-stained, edited, and argued-over scraps that came before it. That's where the real history lives.