Committee of Five
The Committee of Five of the Second Continental Congress was a group of five members who drafted and presented to the full Congress in Pennsylvania State House what would become the United States Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776. This Declaration committee operated from June 11, 1776, until July 5, 1776, the day on which the Declaration was published.
The committee was composed of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman.
The Committee of Five
The members of this committee were:- John Adams, representative of Massachusetts, who later became the second president of the United States
- Thomas Jefferson, representative of Virginia, who later became the third president of the United States
- Benjamin Franklin, representative of Pennsylvania, known as one of the most famous intellectuals among the Founding Fathers, whose academic writings and press publications had a very significant influence in the American Revolution, the only person to sign the Declaration of Independence, Treaty of Alliance with France, Treaty of Paris, and U.S. Constitution
- Roger Sherman, representative of Connecticut, the only person to sign all four of the U.S. state papers: the Continental Association, the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. Sherman proposed the Connecticut Compromise at the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
- Robert Livingston, representative of New York, who later served as the first United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs, administered the presidential oath of office at the First inauguration of George Washington and negotiated the Louisiana Purchase as the minister to France.
Drafting of the Declaration of Independence
On June 11, the Committee of Five was appointed: John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded. Accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, vary in some respects.
First draft
After discussing the general outline of the document, the Second Continental Congress decided that Jefferson would write the first draft. With Congress's busy schedule, Jefferson had limited time to write the draft over the ensuing 17 days. He then consulted with the others on the committee, who reviewed the draft and made extensive changes. Jefferson then produced another copy incorporating these alterations.Among the changes was the simplification of what Jefferson had termed "preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness" to the more succinct and sonorous phrase familiar to all today, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. This shares some similarities with, but is distinct from, John Locke's prior description of private property as a natural right, in the phrase "life, liberty, and estate".
Jefferson's first draft also considered a scathing criticism of Great Britain's use of slavery, which was later removed in order to avoid offending slaveholders.
Presentation of the draft
On June 28, 1776, the committee presented this copy to the "Committee of the Whole" Congress, which was commemorated by Trumbull’s famed painting. The title of the document was "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled".Signing
Although not officially noted, the estimated time was 6:26 p.m. for the recording of this historic vote. The Congress then heard the report of the Committee of the Whole and declared the sovereign status of the United Colonies the following day, during the afternoon of July 2. The Committee of the Whole then turned to the Declaration, and it was given a second reading before adjournment.Last minute arguments
On Wednesday, July 3, the Committee of the Whole gave the Declaration the third reading and commenced scrutiny of the precise wording of the proposed text. But for two passages in the Committee of Five's draft that were rejected by the Committee of the Whole the work was accepted without any other major changes. One was a critical reference to the English people and the other was a denunciation of the slave trade and of slavery itself.Jefferson wrote in his autobiography, of the two deleted passages:
As John Adams recalled many years later, this work of editing the proposed text was largely completed by the time of adjournment on July 3. However, the text's formal adoption was deferred until the following morning, when the Congress voted its agreement during the late morning of July 4.
Fair copy
The draft document as adopted was then referred back to the Committee of Five to prepare a "fair copy", this being the redrafted-as-corrected document prepared for delivery to the broadside printer, John Dunlap. And so the Committee of Five convened in the early evening of July 4 to complete its task.Historians have had no documentary means by which to determine the identity of the authenticating party. It is unclear whether the Declaration was authenticated by the Committee of Five's signature, or the Committee submitted the fair copy to President Hancock for his authenticating signature, or the authentication awaited President John Hancock's signature on the printer's finished proof-copy of what became known as the Dunlap broadside. Either way, upon the July 5 release of the Dunlap Broadside of the Declaration, the Committee of Five's work was done.