Chapter VI: The Illegal Seal

In ancient times a seal to authenticate a document was always impressed upon wax, or metal, or even upon clay; but this gave place to the more convenient method of impressing the seal directly upon the paper by the use of two faces of a die. It was, presumably, a desire to introduce this improvement which prompted the Department of State in 1841 to discard the seal of 1782 and have a new die cut. The work was ordered without any specific appropriation being made for the purpose by Congress, and was entrusted to Edward Stabler, of Sandy Spring, Md., where he was postmaster from 1828 to 1883, who cut many government seals, and had a reputation as a seal engraver. He was doubtless permitted to design the seal in his own way, and it was accepted without notice being taken of its palpable deficiencies from an artistic and heraldic point of view and its failure to satisfy the plain requirements of the law in the important particular of the number of arrows in the eagle’s sinister talon.

In reply to a letter from John D. Champlin, jr., in 1877, the Department of State said of the seal:

This change [from the design of the seal of 1782] does not appear to
have been authorized by law, and the cause of it is unknown.[30]

The inaccuracies of the design of the arms on this seal were the subject of grave criticism from time to time. In the Galaxy Magazine for May, 1877, Mr. Champlin pointed out the improper arrangement of the pales, the red being twice as wide as the white, and the fatal disregard of the law requiring thirteen arrows in the eagle’s sinister talon. “Is it possible,” he said, “that an arbitrary alteration can be made in the great seal of the United States by the officials temporarily in charge of it? And if so, what is to prevent some future Secretary of State, with notions of his own in regard to heraldic bearings, from discarding the old seal altogether, in favor of some creation of his own?”

This seal was cut when Daniel Webster was Secretary of State, and a fair explanation of its deficiencies is that he knew nothing about the details of the prescribed design, and entrusted the business of securing a new seal to his subordinates, who were equally ignorant; and they in turn entrusted it to the engraver. Unquestionably, the Secretary of State has no authority to change the device of the arms, as it is prescribed by law, in the slightest degree, nor could the President himself properly authorize such a change. As the seal was created by Congress it would require an act of Congress to alter it. In this respect it is different from the arms of a monarchy. The arms of Great Britain, for example, being formed from those of different monarchs, have, in fact, undergone three changes since American independence—in 1801, when the arms of France were excluded and the arms of Hanover placed “over all on an escutcheon of pretense,” “ensigned with the electoral bonnet;” in 1816, when the bonnet was changed for the Hanoverian crown; and upon the death of William IV, when the present arrangement was made. How far the Secretary of State, as the custodian of the seal, may deviate from the original design in having a new one cut, provided he adheres to the terms of the creating law, is another question, which, as we shall see presently, was finally decided in favor of the conservative side.

The centennial anniversary of the adoption of the seal was marked by a revival in interest concerning it, and C. A. L. Totten, then a first lieutenant in the Army, called the attention of the Treasury Department to the fact that the reverse had never been cut, suggesting that the time was appropriate for placing it upon a medal or coin. This met with the approval of the Department, so far as a medal was concerned, and under the supervision of Hon. A. Louden Snowden, then Director of the Mint at Philadelphia, a medal was struck in commemoration of the centennial anniversary of the adoption of the seal. The obverse closely resembled the first important illustration of the seal made after its adoption. This appeared in the Columbian Magazine for September, 1786, and was a spirited engraving. It differed from the official interpretation in the distribution of the stars, which were put about the eagle’s neck and head, instead of in a circle above the head. The olive branch had sixteen leaves and no fruits, and the rays of the sun extended through the clouds. The reverse of the medal contained the dates 1782 and 1882, to indicate its purpose, beside the mottoes.[31]

Notice has already been taken of Mr. Champlin’s article in which he criticised the seal of 1841, which the Department had been using for so many years, notwithstanding its glaring errors. His criticism, Mr. Totten’s agitation of the question of cutting the reverse, and the striking of the great seal medal were the moving causes of the important action of the Secretary of State, Theodore F. Frelinghuysen, in 1883.

The first committee on the seal recommended a reverse, and so did succeeding committees, and a reverse was provided for in the creating act. From this it would appear certain that the original idea was to use a pendant seal of wax with an impression on either side of it. Pendant seals were then common and are still used in many cases. In affixing such a seal to a treaty it is so large that the wax would inevitably break if it were unprotected, so it is enclosed in a metal box, usually of gold or silver, highly ornamented. After the United States secured a great seal it affixed the same one to all its acts, and did not have a separate pendant treaty seal until about 1856, when one was made at the State Department’s instance, or upon an understanding with the Department, by Samuel Lewis, a jeweler in Washington. It was cut in iron, weighing about 20 pounds, and was 6 to 8 inches in diameter. The design followed the law accurately, but the treatment was realistic rather than heraldic. This seal was kept by Mr. Lewis, being, as it appears, his property, and whenever a seal for a treaty was required he furnished an imprint in wax with the silver or gold box in which it was to be placed, the box having upon the cover the arms stamped in relief. The cords or ribbons passing through the treaty were adjusted through the wax at the Department of State. The seal as thus attached to the treaties made by this Government with foreign powers for thirteen years compared favorably with the treaty seals used by other governments. In 1869 the use of the separate seal for treaties was abandoned, and the practice of fixing the regular seal to the paper itself was reverted to, and now maintains.

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