Great Seal of the United States

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The Great Seal of the United States is used to authenticate certain documents issued by the United States government. The phrase is used both for the physical seal itself, (which is in the keeping of the U.S. Secretary of State), and more generally for the design impressed upon it. The Great Seal was publicly first used in 1782.

The design on the obverse of the great seal is the national coat of arms of the United States and is officially used on documents such as passports as well as for military insignia, embassy placards, and various flags. As a coat of arms, the design has official colors; the physical Great Seal itself, as affixed to paper, is monochrome.

Since 1935, both sides of the Great Seal appear on the reverse of the One-Dollar Bill of the United States.
Image:USSEAL.gif

Contents 1 Design 1.1 Obverse 1.2 Reverse 2 History 3 Symbolism 4 Current seal 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

Design

Obverse

The main figure on the obverse, (or front), of the seal is the coat of arms of the United States, a bald eagle with its wings outstretched (or "displayed", in heraldic terms). From the eagle's perspective, it holds a bundle of thirteen arrows in its left talon, (referring to the thirteen original states), and an olive branch, in its right talon, symbolic respectively of war and peace, (see: Olive Branch Petition). Although not specified by law, the olive branch is usually depicted with thirteen leaves and thirteen olives, again representing the thirteen original states. The eagle has its head turned towards the olive branch, said to symbolize a preference for peace. The eagle clutches the motto "E Pluribus Unum", ("Of Many, One"), in its beak; over its head there appears a "glory" with thirteen mullets (stars) on a blue field. In the current (and several previous) dies of the great seal, the thirteen stars above the eagle are arranged in rows of 1-4-3-4-1, forming a six-pointed star, sometimes incorrectly identified as a Star of David.

The shield the eagle bears on its breast, though sometimes drawn incorrectly, has two main differences from the American flag. First, it has no stars on the blue chief, (though other arms based on it do: the chief of the arms of the United States Senate may show thirteen or fifty, and the shield the September 11 Commission has, sometimes, fifty mullets on the chief). Second, unlike the American flag, the outermost stripes are white, not red; so as not to violate the heraldic rule of "color on color."

The 1782 resolution of Congress adopting the arms, still in force, blazoned the shield as legally blazoned "Paleways of 13 pieces, argent and gules; a chief, azure." As the designers recognized, this is a technically incorrect blazon under traditional English heraldic rules, since in English practice a vertically striped shield would be described as "paly," not "paleways," and it could not be striped of an uneven number. A more technically proper blazon would have been argent, six pallets gules… (six red stripes on a white field), but the phraseology used was chosen to preserve the reference to the thirteen original colonies.

Abstract of all elements counting thirteen:

• 13 stars (in the crest)
• 13 stripes
• 13 arrows in the eagle’s talon
• 13 letters in the mottos "e pluribus unum" and "annuit coeptis" (apparently coincidental; 52 on the whole seal)
• 13 olive leaves (by custom, not by law)
• 13 olives on the branch (by custom, not by law)
• 13 brick levels of the pyramid (by custom, not by law)

Reverse

The 1782 resolution adopting the seal describes the image on the reverse as "A pyramid unfinished. In the zenith an eye in a triangle, surrounded by a glory, proper." The pyramid is conventionally shown as consisting of with thirteen layers of blocks to refer to the thirteen original states. The adopting resolution provides that it is inscribed on its base with the date 1776 in Roman numerals. Where the top of the pyramid should be, the so-called Eye of Providence watches over it. Two mottos appear: Annuit Cœptis signifies that the Eye of Providence has "nodded at (our) beginnings."^[1] Novus Ordo Seclorum, freely taken from Virgil, means "a new order of the ages" (incorrectly rendered New World Order by some conspiracy theorists, and "a new secular order" by others). The reverse has never been cut (as a seal) but appears, for example, on the back of the one-dollar bill.

The all-seeing eye was a well-known classical symbol of the Renaissance. The eye in a triangle design originally was suggested by Pierre Eugene du Simitiere, and later heraldist William Barton improved upon the design. In Du Simitière's original sketch, two figures stand next to a shield with the all-seeing pyramid above them. The August 20, 1776 report of the first Great Seal Committee describes the seal as "Crest The Eye of Providence in a radiant Triangle whose Glory extends over the Shield and beyond the Figures."

History

On July 4, 1776, the same day that independence from England was declared by the thirteen states, the Continental Congress named the first committee to design a Great Seal, or national emblem, for the country. Similar to other nations, The United States of America needed an official symbol of sovereignty to formalize and seal (or sign) international treaties and transactions. It took six years and three committees in order for the Continental Congress to agree on a design.

The first of these committees was formed by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Each of these men proposed a design for the seal. Franklin chose an allegorical scene that demonstrated the Motto, "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God." Where there is a depiction of the Exodus when the Jewish people are confronted by Pharaoh and achieve their liberation from slavery in Egypt. Jefferson suggested a depiction of the children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night for the front of the seal; and Hengist and Horsa, the two brothers who were the legendary leaders of the first Anglo-Saxon settlers in Britain, for the reverse side of the seal. Adams chose the painting known as the "Judgment of Hercules" where the young Hercules must choose to travel either on the flowery path of self-indulgence or the rugged, more difficult, uphill path of duty to others and honor to himself. Of these initial designs, Congress ultimately chose none but did use four of the design elements from this committee in its final design (Eye of Providence, the date of independence, the shield and the E Pluribus Unum Motto (Out of Many, one). [1].

Finally the problem was turned over to Charles Thomson, the Secretary of the Congress, who merged elements from all three previous attempts. Congress finally approved Thomson's integrated design on June 20, 1782, still in use today; and had it engraved into brass matrices, which were about 2.25 inches in diameter.

On September 16, 1782 Thomson used these matrices for the first time, to verify signatures on a document that authorized George Washington to negotiate an exchange of prisoners. Thomson took care of the Seal until the Constitution installed a new American Government in 1789, when he passed it over to the Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. All subsequent Secretaries of State have been responsible for applying the Seal to diplomatic documents.

The first matrices of the seal were replaced in 1841 when they became too worn to be effective.

There have been a total of seven re-engravings of the Seal since the original, which is now on display in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Symbolism

Upon close inspection one may notice strong symbolic themes used in the seal. For example, the shield is reminiscent of the national flag, and the Bald Eagle is a well-known national symbol of the United States[2].

Among unanswered questions is what the historical significance of the pattern of glory of stars over the eagles head on the obverse side is. Beginning in 1841, the individual stars were drawn with only five points, rather than six^[2].

That of the reverse is murkier. Some conspiracy theorists believe the eye atop the pyramid to have its origins in Masonic iconography[3]. However, the icon is not solely a Masonic symbol, nor was it designed by a Mason. Benjamin Franklin was the only confirmed Mason among the Great Seal committee^[3], but his ideas were not adopted by the committee.

Current seal

The obverse side of the Great Seal is used to emboss the design on international treaties and other official United States Government documents. It is stored in the Exhibit Hall of the U.S. Department of State inside a locked glass enclosure. An officer from the State Department does the actual sealing of documents after the U.S. Secretary of State has countersigned the President's signature. It is used approximately 2,000 to 3,000 times a year.

References

See also

• Seal of the President of the United States
• Seal of the United States Senate

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