It is certain that the first Committee of Five, after discussing the general outline that the document should follow, had decided that Jefferson would write the first draft.

With Congress's busy schedule, Jefferson has had limited time to write the draft over the ensuing seventeen days.

He has consulted with the others on the committee, who review the draft and make extensive changes.

Jefferson now produces another copy incorporating these alterations.

Among the changes is the simplification of the phrase Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, which Jefferson had phrased "preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness".

This is a return to wording closer to John Locke's original description of private property as a natural right, in the phrase "life, liberty, and estate".

On June 28, 1776, the committee presents this copy to the "Committee of the Whole" Congress, which is commemorated by one of the most famous paintings in US history (at right).

The title of the document is "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled".

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence is a 12-by-18-foot (3.7 by 5.5 m) oil-on-canvas painting in the United States Capitol Rotunda that depicts the presentation of the draft of the Declaration of Independence to Congress.

It is based on a much smaller version of the same scene, presently held by the Yale University Art Gallery.

Trumbull will paint many of the figures in the picture from life, and will visit Independence Hall to depict the chamber where the Second Continental Congress met.

The oil-on-canvas work will be commissioned in 1817, purchased in 1819, and placed in the rotunda in 1826.

A. J. (Alexander Jackson) Davis forms the first recognizably modern architectural office in partnership with Ithiel Town.

Davis had dropped out of school to become a respectable lithographer after studying at the American Academy of Fine Arts, the New-York Drawing Association, and from the Antique casts of the National Academy of Design.

He had made a first independent career as an architectural illustrator in the early 1820s, but his friends, especially the painter John Trumbull, had convinced the young man to turn his hand to designing buildings.

In 1826 he had gone to work as a draftsman for New York architect Josiah R. Brady, an early exponent of the Gothic revival. (Brady's Gothic 1824 St. Luke's Episcopal Church is the oldest surviving structure in Rochester, New York.)

Davis had soon left to work in the most prestigious architectural firm of the Greek Revival, the office of Ithiel Town and Martin E. Thompson; here, Davis had had access to the best architectural library in the country, and had gained a thorough grounding in this congenial atmosphere.