The Committee of Five asked thirty-three-year-old Jefferson to write the first draft. Jefferson had established a reputation as a skillful writer in 1774 by enumerating grievances against King George III in A Summary View of the Rights of British America. He had recently written additional grievances which he sent to Williamsburg for inclusion in the Virginia Constitution. In fact, Jefferson was imploring the Virginia legislature to recall him from Philadelphia to Williamsburg to help write the Virginia Constitution, but Virginia recalled Richard Henry Lee instead.[8]
Jefferson remained in Philadelphia and rented the second floor of a three-story home at present day 700 Market Street where he wrote the first draft of the American Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was on three other committees and wrote two committee reports during the seventeen-days, from June11 to June 28, he had to write the Declaration. Jefferson probably did not miss Congressional sessions because two of six Virginia delegation members were absent. Furthermore, Congress usually met six days a week. Given these time constraints, Jefferson likely wrote the declaration over a few days. John Adams supposedly claimed that Jefferson wrote the declaration in a day or two.[9]
One month earlier in Virginia, George Mason wrote the Virginia Constitution and Declaration of Rights. Declaration of Rights proclaimed
That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural Rights . . . among which are the Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the Means of acquiring and possessing Property, and pursueing and obtaining Happiness and Safety.[10]
Thomas Ludwell Lee, Richard Henry Lee’s brother, wrote some of the Virginia document which also included Jefferson’s charges against the King. The Virginia Convention first heard Mason’s draft on May 27 and ordered copies printed for review. On June 1, the Virginia Gazette published the draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. On June 12, one day after the Committee of Five was appointed, Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Gazette published the draft of the Virginia Declaration. Two other Philadelphia newspapers printed the document within two weeks. Jefferson and other committee members most likely saw a copy of the draft. Pauline Maier and other historians agree that Jefferson likely had “in hand two texts” when he drafted the Declaration of Independence: George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights, and grievances against the King which Jefferson wrote for the Virginia Constitution.[11]