Credible evidence contradicts the statement. Learn more in Methodology.
Contemporary correspondence, drafts, or other primary-source historical records corroborate that Franklin recommended including the phrase in Jefferson's draft of the Declaration.
Primary-source evidence shows Thomas Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration already contained the key language: “We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant …,” meaning Jefferson himself had already included the phrase about “truths” and “all men are created equal” before any review by Benjamin Franklin or others. Scholars have long debated who changed Jefferson’s wording from “sacred & undeniable” to “self-evident,” and while many popular accounts attribute that specific word change to Franklin, the National Archives’ Founders Online notes there is no conclusive evidence for Franklin’s authorship of even that edit and that the change may instead be in Jefferson’s own hand. There is no documentary evidence that Franklin suggested Jefferson “include” the full phrase “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”; at most, Franklin may have influenced a single word substitution in an already-existing sentence. Therefore, the claim is false because the core phrase predated Franklin’s review and historians lack firm evidence that Franklin originated or suggested the specific wording described. Verdict: False, because Jefferson had already written the sentence (including that all men are created equal), and even the narrower attribution of the term “self-evident” to Franklin is not supported by conclusive primary-source evidence.