The original draft of the Declaration of Independence was not accepted without change. It underwent a series of revisions and edits by the members of the Committee of Five, which included Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, as well as by the Continental Congress as a whole. Various suggestions were made, and some parts of the draft were struck out or altered. The final version that was adopted on July 4, 1776, differed from the original draft in a number of ways.