While the whole of this 70 minute video is really interesting, I very specially enjoyed the 10 minutes or so, starting at this point — Joanne Freeman on the Revolutionary Era:
the question they started out with was do we stand or do we sit when [the president] comes in the room?
Because to them that had big implications. … If they sat it was suggesting that they were somehow more important than the president that they weren't honoring the president. If they stood maybe they were treating him like a king.