When the Second Continental Congress adopted resolutions to declare independence from the British Empire, they appointed a committee of five men—John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman—to draft a declaration to that effect. After brief deliberation, the authorship of the declaration was handed to Jefferson, largely because he was considered the best writer. Jefferson was fresh off the composition of a constitution for the state of Virginia that included a Declaration of Rights, drafted by Jefferson and George Mason, that read very similarly to Jefferson’s text for the Declaration of Independence.