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Detail from John Trumbull's 1818 painting of the Committee of Five presenting their draft of the Declaration of Independence to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. (L–R): John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. Public Domain
This is the third in a five-essay series on the Declaration of Independence, written for its 250th anniversary. Read part I here, part II here, and part IV here.
Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor, is Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Mountain States Policy Center and the Independence Institute. He authored “The Original Constitution” (4th ed., 2025) and is a contributor to the Heritage Foundation’s “Heritage Guide to the Constitution.”