Great Seal of the United States | Facts, History, & Symbolism

On September 16, 1782, the Great Seal of the United States of America was used for the first time. From the article:

"Great Seal of the United States | Facts, History, & Symbolism

Alternative Title: Seal of the United States
Great Seal of the United States, official seal of the United States of America. The design of the obverse is the coat of arms of the United States—an official emblem, mark of identification, and symbol of the authority of the government. On the reverse is an unfinished pyramid topped with an eye enclosed in a triangle. Above this are the words Annuit Cœptis (“He Has Favored Our Undertaking”). Carved at the base of the pyramid is MDCCLXXVI (1776) in reference to the Declaration of Independence, and below that is the motto Novus Ordo Seclorum (“A New Order of the Ages”).

The seal has a limited use which is strictly guarded by law. Title 18 of the United States Code (as amended in January 1971) prohibits the display of the seal

in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof.

As the functions of the federal government expanded over the years, the extent of its use was curtailed from time to time by acts of Congress or executive order. For instance, where originally the seal was affixed to all civil (not military or naval) commissions signed by the president, now persons appointed by the president to serve under most of the cabinet officers other than the secretary of state are commissioned under the seals of the respective departments.

Currently the seal is affixed to instruments of ratification of treaties; proclamations of treaties; full powers; exequaturs; presidential warrants for the extradition of fugitives from the justice of the United States; and commissions of cabinet officers, ambassadors, foreign service officers, and all other civil officers appointed by the president whose commissions are not required by law to issue under another seal. It is affixed also to the envelope enclosing a ceremonial communication from the president to the head of a foreign state or government. To commissions that issue under the seal, the secretary of state is required by law to cause it to be affixed after the president has signed. For “any other instrument or act” the secretary formerly required a special warrant from the president directing him to do so. An executive order of April 18, 1952, however, dispensed with the warrant for documents within the abovementioned categories. An executive order of May 23, 1967, exempted all presidential proclamations except those of treaties and other international agreements from passing under the seal. Except for the commissions of a few civil officers, the Great Seal is now used only in connection with international affairs.

Legally the seal has two names, "Seal of the United States" and "Great Seal." Both appear in acts of Congress and in a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and both are in general use. In the resolution of June 20, 1782, creating it, the term used is “great seal.” During the early years of the Department of State that designation served to distinguish it from the seal of the department, then called the “seal of office” or “privy seal.” The act of 1789, however, declared the seal of 1782 to be the “seal of the United States”; in documents to which it is affixed there is long-standing precedent for the same wording; and several publications of the Department of State have been so titled.

Origin of the Great Seal
By the 18th century it was typical for rulers of nations to authenticate important state documents by affixing a seal as a symbol of the governing power. Accordingly, when the United States came into existence, the Continental Congress acted to provide a seal for the new nation. Declaring independence on July 4, 1776, Congress that evening named Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson a committee “to bring in a device for a seal for the United States of America.”

The committee consulted with Philadelphia artist Pierre Eugène du Simitière. Choosing a design of his, with slight changes, for the obverse, and one by Franklin for the reverse, it reported to Congress on August 20, 1776. That body tabled the report and deferred further action. However, certain elements carried over into the seal that was adopted: the shield, the motto E pluribus unum (seemingly contributed by Franklin), the “Eye of Providence in a radiant Triangle,” and the date “MDCCLXXVI.”

On March 25, 1780, Congress referred the report to a new committee, consisting of James Lovell of Massachusetts, John Morin Scott of New York, and William Churchill Houston of New Jersey. Meanwhile, on June 14, 1777, Congress had adopted the Stars and Stripes as the national flag. The new committee, aided by the versatile Francis Hopkinson, reported its design on May 10 or 11, 1780. On May 17 Congress considered the report and ordered it recommitted. Although it suffered the fate of the earlier proposal, certain of its elements also carried over into the final seal: the colours red, white, and blue on the shield; the olive branch; and the crest of a “radiant constellation of 13 Stars.”

In the spring of 1782 Congress appointed as a third committee Arthur Middleton and John Rutledge of South Carolina and Elias Boudinot of New Jersey. This committee sought help from William Barton, a young Philadelphian accomplished in heraldry and drawing. Barton prepared two complicated designs, the second of which the committee reported to Congress on May 9, 1782. In this design the “eagle displayed” appeared on the obverse, and the pyramid on the reverse, with the latter approaching its final form. Still unsatisfied, however, Congress on June 13 referred this and the previous reports to Charles Thomson, secretary of Congress.

With the reports of the three committees before him, Thomson now prepared his own design. Adopting the eagle from Barton’s design as the central figure, he specified that it be an “American Eagle” and “on the Wing & rising” instead of “displayed.” On the eagle’s breast he placed the shield, and on the shield he rearranged in the form of chevrons the white and red stripes that the second committee had made diagonal and that Barton had made horizontal. In the eagle’s right talon he placed an olive branch, from the design of the second committee, and in the left talon a bundle of arrows. For the crest he took the constellation of 13 stars from the design of the second committee. From the report of the first committee he adopted the motto E Pluribus Urum, placing it on a scroll in the eagle’s beak. For the reverse he accepted Barton’s design, substituting, however, new mottoes, reintroducing the date “MDCCLXXVI,” and replacing the “Eye, surrounded with a Glory” with "an Eye in a triangle surrounded with a glory," from the first committee’s report. Thomson handed Barton a written description of this design together with a rough sketch of the obverse.

On June 19, 1782, Barton rewrote Thomson’s description of the obverse in the precise language of heraldry. He made a major change in the shield, substituting for Thomson’s chevrons 13 vertical stripes alternately white and red below a blue chief. He restored the “displayed” posture of the eagle and specified that the arrows should number 13.

Promptly on receiving Barton’s paper of June 19, Thomson penned a report to Congress. Basing it on Barton’s paper, with minor omissions, and adding his own earlier description of the reverse (which he had adapted from Barton), he submitted it to Congress the next day. By resolution of June 20, 1782, Congress adopted Thomson’s report. Its heraldic description, or blazon, which has the force of law, reads as follows (Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, vol. xxii, pp. 338–339; for Thomson’s explanation of the symbolism, see pp. 339–340):

ARMS. Paleways of thirteen pieces, argent and gules; a chief, azure; the escutcheon on the breast of the American eagle displayed proper, holding in his dexter talon an olive branch, and in his sinister a bundle of thirteen arrows, all proper, and in his beak a scroll, inscribed with this motto, “E pluribus Unum.”

For the CREST. Over the head of the eagle, which appears above the escutcheon, a glory, or, breaking through a cloud, proper, and surrounding thirteen stars, forming a constellation, argent, on an azure field.

REVERSE. A pyramid unfinished. In the zenith, an eye in a triangle, surrounded with a glory proper. Over the eye these words, “Annuit Coeptis.” On the base of the pyramid the numerical letters MDCCLXXVI. And underneath the following motto, “Novus Ordo Seculorum.”

The three Latin mottoes have been translated, “Out of many, one”; “He [God] has favoured our undertakings”; and “A new order of the ages.”

Within three months the obverse was cut in brass. The earliest known impression is on a document dated September 16, 1782, authorizing Gen. George Washington to negotiate with the British regarding prisoners of war. The seal and press remained with Charles Thomson as secretary of the Continental Congress until he delivered them on July 23, 1789, to Washington as president under the Constitution. An act of the new Congress, approved September 15, 1789, changed the Department of Foreign Affairs to the Department of State, including provisions for the custody and use of the seal as follows:

…the seal heretofore used by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be, and hereby is declared to be, the seal of the United States.

…the said Secretary shall keep the said seal, and shall make out and record, and shall affix the said seal to all civil commissions, to officers of the United States, to be appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, or by the President alone.

Provided, That the said seal shall not be affixed to any commission, before the same shall have been signed by the President of the United States, nor to any other instrument or act, without the special warrant of the President therefor.

Use of the Great Seal
Since 1782 eight different dies have been used. They were cut and used for impressing the device on paper—usually a paper wafer pasted to the page of the document, but sometimes directly on the page itself. Two additional dies, used between 1825 and 1871 concurrently with the wafer seals, embossed large wax pendant or hanging seals.

The die of 1782, cut in brass by an unknown engraver, remained in use as late as April 24, 1841. Its impressions, about 2 1/4 inches (57 mm) in diameter, have a quaintly archaic appearance. Distinguishing characteristics are the outer border of modified acanthus leaves; the meagreness of the eagle; olive branch and arrows touching the border; and six-pointed stars. Lacking a counterdie, this die was impressed on a paper wafer, a thin disk of red adhesive serving the double purpose of attaching the wafer to the document and bringing out the device in relief.

The second die, known as the “old treaty seal,” was cut by Washington jeweler and silversmith Seraphim Masi, to whom on May 5, 1825, the Department of State paid $406 “for Treaty Boxes & a great Seal.” Its 4 1/2-inch (114-mm) impressions depict the eagle realistically rather than heraldically. Used concurrently with the seal of 1782, it was reserved for making red-wax pendant seals. Each pendant seal was enclosed, for protection, in a metal case or skippet about 5 inches (127 mm) in diameter and 1 1/2 inches (38 mm) thick. The skippets were usually of sterling silver, although a few were of solid gold, and the skippet top or cover bore a replica of the seal device cast in relief. The old treaty-seal die was never impressed otherwise than as a pendant seal; and it was reserved almost exclusively for use on original instruments of ratification of treaties destined for exchange with foreign governments.

The old treaty seal served for 46 years. Using it, however, was both cumbersome and expensive. In February 1871 Secretary of State Hamilton Fish ordered the purchase of pendant-seal materials discontinued. The last pendant seal was affixed May 25, 1871, to the instrument of ratification of the Treaty of Washington.

The second pendant-seal die is an anomaly, because it was never intended as a seal. That it was so used resulted from accident, ignorance, or oversight. From 1854 the Department of State bought all its pendant-seal skippets from Washington jeweler Samuel Lewis. For casting the skippet covers, which featured a replica of the seal in relief, Lewis had an iron die the device of which was the same size as the treaty seal and a close copy of it. Most noticeable differences are the deeper engraving of the Lewis die and the stronger brow and shaggier feathering of its eagle. In June 1869 Lewis furnished the State Department some wax castings of the seal. Examination of various examples of the pendant seal on instruments of ratification of treaties in the British and Swedish archives reveals that each one was cast from the 1825 die. Another example, which was affixed on April 29, 1871, to the ratification of a treaty signed February 26, 1871, with Italy, and which is in the archives at Rome, is clearly from the Samuel Lewis die.

In April 1841 the State Department replaced the seal of 1782 with a new die. Washington engraver and copperplate printer John Van Ness Throop cut it in cast steel. About the same size as its predecessor, it differs in the style of its engraving. Distinguishing characteristics are the crowding upward of the design; the more vigorous rendering of the eagle; the small five-pointed stars; and the two arcs, instead of a straight line, forming the upper edge of the shield. Moreover, it includes an error. Instead of the prescribed 13 arrows, the eagle grasps only 6. In its earlier years this die was impressed, like the die of 1782, on a paper wafer over red adhesive. About 1863, however, a crude counterdie was provided, and thereafter glue or paste held the wafer to the document.

In November 1877 the seal of 1841 was replaced with a new die. It was cut in steel by Herman Baumgarten, a Washington seal-engraver who also furnished a press with a case and locks. According to a writer who saw this seal in 1882, it consisted of a die and counterdie “permanently fixed in the press,” which was “covered when not in employment with a locked mahogany box.” About the same size as the seals of 1782 and 1841, impressions from this die show a design closely copied from that of 1841, even to the error of 6 arrows instead of 13. This seal can be readily distinguished from its predecessor, however, by the larger size of the stars in the crest.

Criticism of the faulty design of the seal then in use led to an act of Congress approved July 7, 1884, which appropriated $1,000 to “enable the Secretary of State to obtain dies of the obverse and reverse of the seal of the United States, and the appliances necessary for making impressions from and for the preservation of the same.” Theodore F. Dwight, chief of the Department’s Bureau of Rolls and Library, called into consultation authorities on history, heraldry, art, and engraving. These experts agreed they were bound to follow the design adopted by Congress on June 20, 1782. Accordingly, they endeavoured to perfect the aesthetic and heraldic execution of that design. The result was an enlargement of the seal of 1782 that combined artistic improvements with stricter adherence to the original resolution. Tiffany & Co. of New York cut the design in steel; this die was used from April 1885 until January 1904. Differing in size from the earlier seals, its impression measures 3 inches (76 mm) in diameter. Fixed in a screw press fitted with a bronze counterdie, this seal was usually impressed on a paper wafer pasted to the document.

Although the act of 1884 included a provision for cutting the reverse as well as the obverse, and although the Department’s records show payment to Tiffany & Co. on April 23, 1885, for “Dies of the obverse and reverse,” if the reverse was in fact cut, it was then suppressed. The die of 1885 having grown worn from use, Secretary of State John Hay wrote the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee in 1902 that the department needed a new die and an improved press and stand. In due course an act of Congress approved July 1, 1902, appropriated $1,250 for the purpose. Lapsing before the seal had been cut, the appropriation was renewed by an act approved March 3, 1903, which specified recutting “from the original model.” This was understood to mean that the new die must reproduce exactly the design of the seal of 1885. Engraved by Bailey, Banks & Biddle, of Philadelphia, the hardened-steel die was first used on January 27, 1904. Although like the seal of 1885 in both size and design, its impressions have greater depth and differ minutely in the rays of the “glory.” In the 1885 seal all the rays are solid lines; in the 1904 seal every other ray is a dotted line. On July 1, 1955, with public ceremonies, the State Department installed this seal and press in a locked, glass-enclosed cubicle in its main exhibit hall.

In 1986 the Bureau of Engraving and Printing created a new master die based on the 1904 die and struck a new die from it. All future dies will be produced using this master die. The new die replaced the 1904 in the State Department exhibit hall, where it remains bolted and padlocked when not in use."