Committee of Five

The Committee of Five of the Second Continental Congress drafted and presented to the Congress what became known as America's 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.

On the Monday afternoon of June 10, 1776, the delegates of the United Colonies in Congress resolved to postpone until Monday July the 1st the final consideration of whether or not to declare the several sovereign independencies of the United Colonies, as proposed by the North Carolina resolutions of April the 12th and the Virginia resolutions of May the 15th, and moved in Congress on June the 7th by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia; henceforth the Lee Resolution. During these allotted three weeks Congress agreed to appoint a committee to draft a broadside statement to proclaim to the world the reasons for taking America out of the British Empire, if the Congress were to declare the said sovereign independencies. The actual declaration of "American Independence" is precisely the text comprising the final paragraph of the published broadside of July the 4th. In the broadside's final paragraph is repeated the text of the Lee Resolution as adopted by the declaratory resolve voted on July the 2nd. Hence, "American Independence", of these "Free and independent States", was actually declared in the Congress on the afternoon of July the 2nd and reported as such...
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