My own focus on the Declaration of Independence has been almost exclusively textual and documentary. I’m humbled every time I return to the Revolutionary period by entire mountain ranges of scholarship and study I have not even imagined.

One I have not well imagined could apply to Sunday, June 9, 1776. Congress didn’t meet on Sundays. So what did delegates do on Sundays? Maybe they were all such pious Christians that they revered the Sabbath: worshiped in the morning at one of the Philadelphia churches and then napped in the afternoon, in accordance with the Ten Commandments (so to speak).

I’m sure many did exactly that. I’m just about as sure that others (Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams) did not. They and others might have taken horseback rides out into the country, or have gone out on social visits in Philadelphia.

More than likely, though, they caught up on delegate business of various kinds. Correspondence with family and contacts would have been important. Catching up on newspapers, magazines, and even books. Most delegates served on multiple committees of various kinds, so there was reading to do and reports to prepare.

Correspondence with family, friends, contacts, and assemblies would have been important, too. Should you be so inclined, check out Paul H. Smith’s 26-volume Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, volume 4, May 16-August 15, 1776.

It’s also likely that they continued politicking in various ways, in walkways and over meals and beverages. Given the urgency and the mountain of concerns to be negotiated, it’s hard to think anything other than that Congress’s work continued informally and off-the-clock. Maybe deals and compromises and agreements were worked out. Maybe information was gathered and shared.

Maybe there are historians who can provide a more concrete account of Sunday activities and inactivities for the Second Continental Congress. But whatever they did, on Sunday, June 9, they certainly set aside the resolution for independence for a day so that they could return rested and energized on Monday morning, to enter into a committee of the whole again and get back at it. One thing was clear from the Friday and Saturday sessions: amid all the other business, they were not all on the same page.

Countdown to Semiquincentennial: Number 3, June 9, 1776
By Michael G. Ditmore