This committee was elected by ballot, on the
following day, and consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin
Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.
It is usual when committees are elected by ballot, that their members
are arranged in order, according to the number of votes which each has
received. Mr. Jefferson, therefore, had received the highest, and Mr.
Adams the next highest number of votes. The difference is said to have
been but of a single vote. Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams, standing thus at
the head of the committee, were requested by the other members to act
as a sub-committee to prepare the draft; and Mr. Jefferson drew up
the paper. The original draft, as brought by him from his study, and
submitted to the other members of the committee, with interlineations in
the handwriting of Dr. Franklin, and others in that of Mr. Adams, was in
Mr. Jefferson's possession at the time of his death. The merit of this
paper is Mr. Jefferson's. Some changes were made in it on the suggestion
of other members of the committee, and others by congress while it was
under discussion. But none of them altered the tone, the frame,
the arrangement, or the general character of the instrument, As a
composition, the Declaration is Mr.
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