As already noted, Congress always adjourned on Sundays, and often on Saturdays, so there are no official proceedings for Sunday, June 30, 1776. Even the correspondence is fairly bare – and unrelated to independence or to the Declaration.

John Adams wrote a longish letter to Cotton Tufts, a cousin-in-law and doctor in Massachusetts, taken up entirely with the various manufactures and materials need for conducting a war: a foundry, muskets and bayonets, gunpowder, flints, sulphur, lead, and salt. Presumably Adams was also preparing for the resumption of the independence debate the following day.

Jefferson wrote a letter of gratitude to the Virginia Convention for re-electing him to Congress but at the same time begging off because of “domestic affairs” – he offered no details, but his Martha (whom he affectionately called Patty) was very ill.

One of the other Virginia delegates, Francis Lightfoot Lee, started a letter to Richard Henry Lee, updating him mainly on military affairs and the New York conspiracy. He would leave the letter open and continue with very important news on July 1.

But we should recall that both George Wythe and Richard Henry Lee – who was the first to formally propose independence – had returned to Williamsburg in mid-June. That means neither was around either to influence other to delegates or to engage in the debate that would happen the following day. This is a great irony for Lee especially, since it was “his” resolution that would be the center of attention.

Although it is not recorded exactly, over the weekend Pennsylvania delegate John Dickinson – who had been a key leader in resistance to British oppressions – was preparing notes for a speech he would make against independence the following Monday, despite the recent shifting current of opinion in Pennsylvania.

Public domain photograph of a handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence. From Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library

And the Declaration draft itself? We will have to imagine it sitting, with other documents, on the table in what is now Independence Hall, awaiting its own turn in the spotlight, beyond the control of the committee (and the drafter) who submitted it. What was it like? What were its words?

While Jefferson’s “original Rough draught” can give us an idea, I’d suggest instead that readers take a look at clean handwritten copy that Jefferson made and sent to his mentor George Wythe after the Declaration had been printed and published, on Monday, July 8, or shortly after.

Jefferson wanted Wythe (and others as well) to see the draft of the Declaration that was submitted to Congress on June 28. That copy is held by the New York Public Library; with a few adjustments for Jefferson’s handwriting style, it is fairly clear and readable. 

Countdown to Semiquincentennial: Number 24, June 30, 1776
By Michael G. Ditmore