The Great Seal of AmericaThey were dreamers. America’s founding fathers were. A majority of them had recently rejected a monarchy as an acceptable form of government and opted for a democracy instead. They were dreamers because a democratic form of government had not been tried since an attempt at Athens in the fourth century. On paper it looked good to these thinkers.
Most of these men were well bred, well traveled, and well read. Most had studied abroad and earned degrees from prestigious universities on the continent. All of them were students of history, government, languages and even the arts. They had the luxury of time to read, think, dream, and debate. Some of the greatest minds of all time filled the pubs of Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, testing their own theories against those of other patriots.
They all sensed the gravity of the situation, and discerned a higher power’s involvement in their dreams. This was no ordinary event of history. Few men have known the freedom to chart the course of their own lives, much less the lives of their fellow countrymen. Their dreams would bring about the greatest country the world has ever known.
The British parliament was, to a degree, a representative form of government, with a king at its head. The colonists, however, flatly rejected its origins and chose to cut the cords with its parent. There would be no monarchy in America.
Those brave dreamers would rather have an untried democratic government than continue under another despotic king. The beginning was rough, those elected to roles of leadership wrote their own job descriptions as they went along. They were experiencing a loss of collective and individual security, with no one of experience to guide them. The mood of the nation was confusion and chaos. After all, those who voted in the minority were still present, tongues wagging continually, “It’s not going to work.”
A need for a traditional coat of arms was expressed, or at least some symbol that embodied the identity of the fledgling nation. In 1776 the first Congress appointed a Great Seal committee.
A seal identifies, authenticates, and documents, they had been in use for several thousand years. So it was natural for the new nation to want their very own coat of arms. Great Seals originated in the seventh century with European royalty. The first English royal pendant seal, that of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), became the model for all future British and American seals.
When choosing a Great Seal, the Americans put aside their animosity toward Britain, and adopted the British tradition of using a Great Seal to authenticate the presidential signature on specific state documents.
America’s Great Seal is its national coat of arms, and it symbolizes the United States government. At one time, it was referred to as the Great Seal of the United States, but since 1892 the State Department has referred to it as the Seal of the United States.
Pendant seals are two-sided. During the years of their greatest use, both sides of a pendant were impressed into two sides of a wax pendant that served to secure ribbons or cords placed between front and back. They were difficult to affix properly, and they were expensive, so they fell into disuse after 1871.
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were given the task of designing the American seal. Pierre Eugene Du Simitiere, a portrait painter with some knowledge of heraldry, acted as a consultant and artist to the first committee. Surprisingly, the only one of this committee whose suggestions made it to the final design was Du Simitiere’s. He introduced four of the final elements: the shield, E Pluribus Unum, MDCCLXXVI, and the eye of providence in a triangle with a glory or rays of light.
In January 1777, Congress rejected the suggestions of the first committee, and a second committee was formed three years later. Francis Hopkinson, an artist who had designed the American flag, some currency, and other official seals, was asked to serve as a consultant. The other members of the second committee were: Chairman John Morin Scott, a New York City attorney and Yale graduate and member of the Continental Congress (1779-83); James Lovell, a native of Boston, scholar, teacher, politician, and Harvard graduate, who also served in the Continental Congress for three years; and William Churchill Houston, a North Carolina native and Princeton graduate and faculty member (1769-83) and member of the Continental Congress in 1779.
And once again it was the consultant who made the only lasting contributions to the seal’s eventual design. In addition to being an artist, Hopkinson was also a musician, lawyer, member of the Continental Congress, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His ideas dominated the second committee’s report. He proposed white and red stripes within a blue background for the shield, a radiant constellation of 13 stars, and an olive branch. For the reverse side he used two elements that he had used when designing the 40 and 50-dollar bills in 1778. The elements were the unfinished pyramid and the eye with rays of light around it.
Secretary of Congress, Charles Thomson, commissioned the third and last committee on May 4, 1782. He named Arthur Middleton, John Rutledge and Elias Boudinot, all with impeccable resumes. Middleton made no contribution at all to the committee. Rutledge took no part in the work of the committee and was replaced by Arthur Lee. Lee was from the wealthy and aristocratic Lee family of Virginia, was a medical doctor and possessed knowledge of coats of arms, seals and heraldry.
Boudinot gave considerable attention to the committee. He was born in Philadelphia in 1740. A lawyer and a well-cultivated gentleman, he served the New Jersey legislature and was elected to Congress in 1782. He, too, was familiar with coats of arms, seals, and heraldry.
Artist William Barton was enlisted as consultant for the third committee. Barton wrote a 40-page pamphlet, “Observations on the Nature and Use of Paper Credit; and the Peculiar Advantage to be Derived from it, in North America.”
Barton’s contributions to the committee were pivotal. His suggestions included an eagle for the front and an unfinished pyramid for the seal’s reverse. By mid-June 1782, Charles Thomson had gathered all the materials from the three committees and, with Barton’s help, created a design that was finally approved for the Great Seal.
Barton and Thomson had all the designs of the three different committees to work with, and they borrowed and modified each other’s designs. Thomson placed the eagle in its dominant position on the seal’s obverse and suggested it be a bald eagle, a bird indigenous to America. There has been considerable talk about a phoenix appearing on the original 1782 Great Seal and on later dies as well.
The report submitted by Barton and Thomson (approved on June 20, 1782) contains their “Remarks and Explanations,” the only official record explaining the symbols in the Great Seal:
The Escutcheon is composed of the chief and pale, the two most honorable ordinaries. The Pieces, paly, represent the several states all joined in one solid compact entire, supporting a Chief, which unites the whole and represents Congress. The Motto alludes to this union. The pales in the arms are kept closely united by the Chief and the Chief depends on that union and strength resulting from it for its support, to denote the Confederacy of the United ‘States of America and the preservation of their union through Congress.
The colours of the pales are those used in the flag of the United States of America; white signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness and valour, and Blue, the colour of the Chief signifies vigilance perseverance and justice. The Olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace and war, which is exclusively invested in Congress. The Constellation denotes a new State taking its place and rank among other sovereign powers. The Escutcheon 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 reverse. The pyramid signifies Strength and Duration: The Eye over it and the Motto allude to the many signal interpositions of providence in favor 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.
Some researchers in the esoteric tradition suggest that our knowledge of the seal’s history and meaning will always remain incomplete because its inspiration was derived from an unseen, hidden, secret, or unknown source. This unknown source has been personified as a secret society, invisible and unverifiable to our physical senses, but represented by the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and the Illuminati.
Of all the contributors whose ideas were eventually incorporated into the finished design for the seal, Hopkinson is the only one who can be verified as having belonged to a secret society. He was a Mason, as was his father before him. Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, might also have gained wisdom from his associations with the Native Americans and his Rosicrucian friends in the Ephrata community.
While our new nation struggled to find an identity, the co-designers of America’s Great Seal collaborated over time to create a lasting symbol to unite present and future generations around ideals such as liberty, purity, justice, and virtue. The new country rallied around the front side with its obvious symbols of strength and independence. However, it would take several more generations of identifying ourselves as Americans before we could begin to identify with the mysterious reverse of the Great Seal.
I'll begin tomorrow on the next installment on the reverse side of the Seal. Trust me, it gets more interesting, and alarming, as we study the history of the reverse.
