Judging from depictions of Federal Hall that I’ve been discussing, some version of the Great Seal of the United States crowned Federal Hall. Every view of the long-defunct building shows some version of the Great Seal as the dominant feature of the pediment. This is noteworthy, because, when the pediment was created in 1788, the “Great Seal” itself was just a few years old.
The tricky business of coming up with symbols to express American nationhood began during the Revolution (1775-1783), when officials of the Continental Congress felt the practical need for a iconography to represent unity. The symbols they came up with were often clumsy: first stabs at projecting power, capturing the unique identity of the United States, and distinguishing their new self-governing nation from old European monarchies. This new symbolic language, marking the states’ rapid transition to a nation, appeared on currency, official documents, flags, military insignia, and eventually buildings.
Charles Thomson, a Philadelphian who served as Congress’s secretary, designed the Great Seal in collaboration with William Barton, an attorney who had made a study of heraldry. According to historian Ben Irvin, in his Clothed In Robes of Sovereignty: The Continental Congress and the People Out of Doors, Thomson and Barton were the first to come up with the combination of the eagle and the shield, which are the essence of the Great Seal. Congress officially adopted the seal on June 30, 1782.
Thomson and Barton’s design incorporated much of the iconography popularized during the war, including the red and white stripes on a field of blue; the number thirteen, as manifest in the bundle of arrows; and the ‘new constellation’ of stars. The eagle, however, was an innovation, and in certain respects a curious one.
Irvin goes on to explain that, in 1775, Ben Franklin had issued a three-dollar bill as Continental currency, depicting Britain as an eagle and America as “a weaker bird.” Franklin despised Thomson and Barton’s choice of the eagle to depict the newly independent nation, arguing that the eagle was a scavenger, “a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly.” Should the new United States be depicted as predatory?
Others, however, approved of the eagle, viewing it as “a symbol of empire.” Even then, some Americans were thinking of the United States in imperial terms. As for Barton, who first proposed the eagle, he assigned it a different, very specific meaning. Barton explained that his eagle was the “Symbol of supreme Power & and Authority, and signifies the Congress.” Note that the official seal predates the Constitution and the creation of the presidency.
Despite early federalism’s structural weaknesses, the Great Seal signified the aspirations of a new, self-governing people—to rule themselves through the mechanism of Congress. It has proved an enduring ideal. This aspiration was integrated into the face of the building where the First Congress met. It’s something to ponder as we gaze on the modern version of the Great Seal of the United States, prominently displayed on the dais where President Trump stands.
Image: from this source.
