Title: United States Declaration of Independence
Content:  Political maneuvering was setting the stage for an official declaration of independence even while a document was being written to explain the decision. On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a "Committee of Five" to draft a declaration, consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. The committee took no minutes, so there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded; contradictory accounts were written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, too many years to be regarded as entirely reliable—although their accounts are frequently cited. What 
Title: Thomas Jefferson
Content:   Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. The document's social and political ideals were proposed by Jefferson before the inauguration of Washington. At age 33, he was one of the youngest delegates to the Second Continental Congress beginning in 1775 at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, where a formal declaration of independence from Britain was overwhelmingly favored. Jefferson chose his words for the Declaration in June 1775, shortly after the war had begun, where the idea of independence from Britain had long since become popular among the colonies. He was inspired by the Enlightenment ideals of the sanctity of the individual, as well as by the writings of Locke and Montesquieu. He sought out 
Title: History of the United States (1776–1789)
Content: The Signers came for the most part from an educated elite, were residents of older settlements, and belonged with a few exceptions to a moderately well-to-do class representing only a fraction of the population. Native or born overseas, they were of British stock and of the Protestant faith. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia, voted unanimously to declare independence as the "United States of America". Two days later, on July 4, Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. The drafting of the Declaration was the responsibility of a Committee of Five, which included John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Benjamin Franklin; it 
Title: African-American history
Content:  The latter half of the 18th century was a time of significant political upheaval on the North American continent. In the midst of cries for independence from British rule, many pointed out the hypocrisy inherent in colonial slaveholders' demands for freedom. The Declaration of Independence, a document which would become a manifesto for human rights and personal freedom around the world, was written by Thomas Jefferson, a man who owned over 200 enslaved people. Other Southern statesmen were also major slaveholders. The Second Continental Congress considered freeing enslaved people to assist with the war effort, but they also removed language from the Declaration of Independence that included the promotion of slavery amongst the offenses of King George III. 
Title: Physical history of the United States Declaration of Independence
Content:  discovery confirmed speculation by historians that Jefferson must have written more than one draft of the text. Many of the words from the Composition Draft were ultimately deleted by Congress from the final text of the Declaration. George Mason was a Virginian politician and wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights in May-June 1776. Mason wrote something very similar to Jefferson's first section of the declaration. Its opening was:"Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring 
Title: Physical history of the United States Declaration of Independence
Content:   The earliest known draft of the Declaration of Independence is a fragment known as the "Composition Draft". The draft, written in July 1776, is in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration. It was discovered in 1947 by historian Julian P. Boyd in the Jefferson papers at the Library of Congress. Boyd was examining primary documents for publication in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson when he found the document, a piece of paper that contains a small part of the text of the Declaration, as well as some unrelated notes made by Jefferson. Prior to Boyd's discovery, the only known draft of the Declaration had been a document known as the Rough Draft. 
Title: American Revolution
Content:  In April 1776, the North Carolina Provincial Congress issued the Halifax Resolves explicitly authorizing its delegates to vote for independence. By June, nine Provincial Congresses were ready for independence; one by one, the last four fell into line: Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New York. Richard Henry Lee was instructed by the Virginia legislature to propose independence, and he did so on June 7, 1776. On June 11, a committee was created by the Second Continental Congress to draft a document explaining the justifications for separation from Britain. After securing enough votes for passage, independence was voted for on July 2. The Declaration of Independence was drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson and presented by the committee; it was unanimously adopted by 
Title: United States Declaration of Independence
Content:  by the Second Continental Congress on July 2 with no opposing votes. The Committee of Five had drafted the Declaration to be ready when Congress voted on independence. John Adams, a leader in pushing for independence, had persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which Congress edited to produce the final version. The Declaration was a formal explanation of why Congress had voted to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America" – although Independence 
Title: Early life and career of Thomas Jefferson
Content:   Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, a formal document which officially proclaimed the dissolution of the American colonies from the British Crown. The sentiments of revolution put forth in the Declaration were already well established in 1776 as the colonies were already at war with the British when the Declaration was being debated, drafted and signed. Before the Declaration was drafted, Jefferson served as a delegate from Virginia to the Second Continental Congress beginning in June 1775, soon after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. He sought out John Adams who, along with his cousin Samuel, had emerged as a leader of the convention. Jefferson and Adams established a lifelong 
Title: Sons of Liberty
Content: Benedict Arnold – businessman, later General in the Continental Army and then the British Army ; Timothy Bigelow – blacksmith, Worcester, Massachusetts ; John Brown – business leader of Providence, Rhode Island ; Samuel Chase – signer of the Declaration of Independence ; John Crane – carpenter, colonel in command of the 3rd Continental Artillery Regiment, Braintree, Massachusetts ; William Ellery – signer of the Declaration of Independence ; Christopher Gadsden – merchant, Charleston, South Carolina ; Patrick Henry – lawyer, Virginia ; Jedediah Huntington - General in the Continental Army ; William Paca – signer of the Declaration of Independence ; Charles Willson Peale – portrait painter and saddle maker, Annapolis, Maryland ; Matthew Phripp – merchant, chairman of the Norfolk committee of safety, prominent Freemason, and colonel of the militia. Norfolk, Virginia ; Benjamin Rush – physician, Philadelphia ; Charles Thomson – tutor, secretary, Philadelphia ; William Williams – signer of the Declaration of Independence 

Question: who is mostly responsible for writing the declaration of independence?
Answer: Thomas Jefferson.