On June 20, 1782, the Continental Congress officially adopted the Great Seal of the United States, concluding a grueling six-year journey of artistic debate and political deliberation. Since the very afternoon the Declaration of Independence was signed, three separate, highly distinguished committees—featuring minds like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams—had struggled to distill the complex spirit of the young rebellion into a single, cohesive graphic identity. Ultimately, it took a collaborative effort between congressional secretary Charles Thomson and attorney William Barton to finalize the iconic design.
The fascinating layer of the seal’s adoption lay in the deep, meticulous symbolism chosen to project American ideals to a skeptical world. Rejecting European-style crowns and royal crests, the final emblem elevated the native bald eagle as the central figure, clutching an olive branch of peace in its right talon and thirteen arrows of defense in its left. Unified by the motto E Pluribus Unum floating above its head, the seal transformed a collection of fragmented, warring colonies into a singular visual entity, declaring to global superpowers that the fledgling republic was legally mature, culturally distinct, and permanently sovereign.
(Image: Painting from St. Paul’s Chapel via Rick Aiello / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)
