The Great Seal

On the very day — July 4, 1776 — when the Continental Congress declared that the American people were going “to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,” they appointed a committee to design and propose a “seal for the United States of America.” This seal was to be the official expression of the sovereign authority they were about to fight for in the war for independence. To show how serious they were about the matter, they put Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams on the committee, which submitted recommendations a month later.

But the Continental Congress had a war for independence on its mind. Four years went by before a second committee was formed, which made its own recommendations. Finally, after six years of war, while peace talks were underway in Paris, a third committee was formed. Now the need for a seal was more pressing, because an independent United States of America would want an official symbol of its newly won sovereignty and an official seal for any peace treaty to be signed.

So, Charles Thomson, Secretary of the United States Congress and a founding father of whom most of us haven’t heard, was asked to take the recommendations of the three committees into account and submit a proposal for a Great Seal. To begin to understand his work, one need only look at an American one-dollar bill. Turning to the back of the bill, we behold on the right side the “obverse” and on the left side the “reverse” of the Great Seal of the United States. To heraldry experts the “obverse” is the front and the “reverse” is the back of something. Heraldry is the discipline of designing coats of arms, armorial bearings, and such things, and the Great Seal of the United States is a product of that art combined with the art of the statesman. One’s first thought is that coats of arms went out of fashion with the knights of the roundtable. But in this case, the arts of the Old World were used to create a coat of arms that would be the official expression of sovereign authority of a nation that understood itself to be inaugurating a new order of the ages.

Thomson submitted to Congress what heraldists call a “blazon” accompanied by “remarks and explanation” on June 20, 1782. It was approved that same day. A blazon is a written description in heraldic terms describing the appearance of the proposed seal. No sketch or illustration accompanied it. His words alone, which are part of the law officially approving the Seal, are the final authority for what the Great Seal of the United States is and what it means. This blazon is a great work of American civic art. Reading it, along with Thomson’s remarks and explanation, while studying the back of our dollar bill can teach us important things about the meaning of the Revolution all Americans inherit and are meant to pass on to our posterity.

Casting your gaze to the right, you behold an American bald eagle bearing on its breast a shield with thirteen vertical stripes; clutching in its left talon thirteen arrows and in its right talon an olive branch; the eagle’s head is turned toward the olive branch in his right talon; a scroll held in the eagle’s beak bears the familiar motto in Latin, E Pluribus Unum; and a “crest” above the eagle’s head contains thirteen stars from which a “glory” emanates, breaking through a cloud. This front or obverse side of the Great Seal is the official coat of arms of the United States of America.

All the thirteens represent, of course, the thirteen original American states. The Latin motto, E Pluribus Unum—out of many, one—expresses the joining of those states into one nation, the United States of America. In his explanation, Thomson tells us that the Shield is “born on the breast of an American Eagle without any other supporters to denote that the United States of America ought to rely on their own Virtue. . . . The Olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace & war which is exclusively vested in Congress.” In heraldry, the right side is always superior to the left side, and the eagle’s head is turned to the olive branch on the right, the symbol of peace, rather than to the arrows, because we fight wars for the sake of peace.
Casting your gaze to the left, you find, in Thomson’s words,

A Pyramid unfinished. In the Zenith an Eye in a triangle surrounded with a glory proper. Over the Eye these words “Annuit Coeptis” [which means “He approves of what has been started”]. On the base of the pyramid, the numerical letters MDCCLXXVI & underneath the following motto. “novus ordo seclorum” [which means “new order of the ages”]. These images, mottos, and dates constitute the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States. Thomson explains them:

The pyramid signifies Strength and Duration: The Eye over it & the Motto allude to the many signal interpositions of providence in favour of the American cause. The date underneath is that of the Declaration of Independence and the words under it signify the beginning of the new American Era, which commences from that date.

We live in the new American Era. Like the unfinished pyramid under the eye of God, the earthly work of American freedom, aspiring to be worthy of divine approval, is always unfinished. We have since 1776 experienced many more “signal interpositions of providence in favor of the American cause.” So long as we continue in good conscience to appeal, as we did in our beginning, “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,” we may “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” like Americans of all preceding generations, with good heart “pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” in this greatest of earthly causes.