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.
VII
THE THIRD SEAL
January 10, 1883, the Secretary of State, Theodore F. Frelinghuysen, addressed the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, Samuel J. Randall, asking for an appropriation of $1,000 to pay for having a new seal of the United States made. “Since the year 1782,” his letter said, “when the device was adopted, there have been, it is believed, but two dies of the obverse of the seal, the only side which has been employed up to this time for sealing documents. The reverse of the seal has never been engraved by the Government. The original die of the obverse, after being in use for about sixty years, was replaced by the present die, which has become very much worn and no longer gives clear impressions. It is also to be observed with respect to the latter that it does not strictly conform to the device established by law. It seems to me, therefore, to be eminently important that a new and correct die be made without delay.” He also advised that the reverse be cut as a compliance with the law and “a proper respect to pay to the founders of this Government, at this time, to carry out the purpose so clearly expressed by them in Congress, June 20, 1782.”
Falling in with this recommendation Congress appropriated, July 7, 1884 (23 Stat., 394), $1,000 “to enable the Secretary of State to obtain dies of the obverse and reverse of the seal of the United States, and appliances necessary for making impressions of the same.”
Mr. Theodore F. Dwight, Chief of the Bureau of Rolls and Library of the Department of State, supervised the work of designing the new seal. He called into consultation the eminent historical scholar, Justin Winsor, and Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, of Harvard; William H. Whitmore, the genealogist, author of Elements of Heraldry (New York, 1866), at that time the only work on heraldry by an American; John Denison Chaplin, jr., an authority on engraving, associate editor of the American Cyclopædia and later of Scribner’s art cyclopædias; and James Horton Whitehouse, chief designer of Messrs. Tiffany & Co., New York. The subject was thus considered from the three points of view of history, heraldry, and art. Professor Norton wrote:
A. It is greatly to be regretted that the device adopted by congress in 1782 is of so elaborate and allegorical a character. The most skilful treatment of it could hardly make it satisfactory as the design for the seal of a great nation. * * *
B. But as this is now the established device, the best way, I believe, to deal with it, would be to treat it as conventionally as possible,—giving it a strictly heraldic character. * * *