Appointment of Committee of Five
- When
- 1776
- Where
- Pennsylvania State House, Philadelphia
- Episodes
- 1
On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a five-member committee to draft a declaration of independence. Comprising John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman, the committee operated from June 11 until July 5, 1776, presenting its draft to the Committee of the Whole on June 28.
Episodes
Background and detail
Membership. The committee was composed of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Franklin, representing Pennsylvania, was regarded as one of the most famous intellectuals among the Founding Fathers, whose writings and press publications significantly influenced the American Revolution.
Operations and Uncertainty. The Declaration committee operated from June 11, 1776, until July 5, 1776, the day the Declaration was published. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded, and within three decades prominent members could no longer recollect details of their participation on July 4 and 5, 1776.
People involved
- John Adams · Committee member
- Benjamin Franklin · Committee member, representative of Pennsylvania
- Thomas Jefferson · Committee member
- Robert Livingston · Committee member
- Roger Sherman · Committee member
Sources
- Committee of Five Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-29
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.