On April 19, 1775, the gunfire at Lexington marked the beginning of the American Revolution. Starting in late March 1776, states such as South Carolina, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Providence seceded from Britain and declared independence. On June 7, 1776, Henry Lee, a representative of the Virginia colony, proposed a motion at the Continental Congress declaring that "the colonies are, and by their rights must be, free and independent states." On June 11, according to the resolution of the Continental Congress, a committee of five people was formed to draft the Declaration: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. Since Franklin suffered a stroke and was unable to work, and Sherman and Livingston were not sufficiently literary, the main writers fell on John Adams, especially Jefferson, who was only 33 years old.

On June 28, after Jefferson drafted the document, it was slightly revised by Adams and Franklin; on the same day, the Declaration Drafting Committee submitted the draft declaration to the Continental Congress for discussion. For the next two days, Jefferson listened at the meeting as 65 critics reviewed and corrected the Declaration he drafted word for word. The paragraphs that fiercely criticized King George III's slave trade in the original manuscript were deleted. On July 4, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence and decided to submit it to a conference of all state representatives for review. Representatives from 13 colonies signed the text of the declaration. On July 19, the Continental Congress decided that the Declaration of Independence should be in the form of a unanimous declaration, and the declaration was officially transcribed and signed by everyone. The date on the clear parchment signed by all the delegates to the Continental Congress was August 2. Because the manifesto was considered an authentic rebellious document at the time, the names of the signatories remained secret for more than six months. On January 19, 1777, the Continental Congress announced the list of signers of the Declaration of Independence for the first time. As for the fact that Jefferson was the author of the book, it took several years for the world to know about it. In 1784, the incident was announced in newspapers.