The Committee of Five of the Second Continental Congress was a group of five members who drafted and presented to the full Congress in Pennsylvania State House what would become the United States 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.
The Jefferson Memorial depicts the Committee of Five on a pediment sculpture by Adolph Alexander Weinman.
Congress Voting Independence, by Robert Edge Pine (1784–1788), depicts the Committee of Five in the center
Writing the Declaration of Independence, 1776, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris' idealized 1900 depiction of (left to right) Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson of the Committee of Five working on the Declaration.
The Committee of Five presents their work to the Continental Congress on June 28, 1776. Painting by John Trumbull (1819)
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was the late-18th-century meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War, which established American independence from the British Empire. The Congress constituted a new federation that it first named the United Colonies, and in 1776, renamed the United States of America. The Congress began convening in Philadelphia, on May 10, 1775, with representatives from 12 of the 13 colonies, after the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Congress Voting Independence by Robert Edge Pine
Image: Independence Hall 10
A 5-dollar banknote issued by the Second Continental Congress in 1775
An 1876 Currier and Ives portrait of George Washington being appointed commanding general of the Continental Army
