when was the declaration put into place
Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence later on the Fourth of July (though most historians now accept that the document was not signed until August 2). A Complicated Legacy Thomas Jefferson wasnât recognized as the principal author of the Declaration of Independence until the 1790s; until then the document was presented as a collective effort by the entire Continental Congress. Jefferson had returned to the Virginia legislature in the late summer of 1776 and in 1785 had succeeded Franklin as minister to France.