The Seal of the President of the United States is used to mark correspondence from the U.S. president to the United States Congress, and is also used as a symbol of the presidency. The central design, based on the Great Seal of the United States, is the official coat of arms of the U.S. presidency and also appears on the presidential flag.
The presidential seal developed by custom over a long period before being defined in law, and its early history remains obscure. The use of presidential seals goes back to at least 1850, and probably much earlier. The basic design of today's seal originated with Rutherford B. Hayes, who was the first to use the coat of arms on White House invitations in 1877. The precise design dates from 1945, when President Truman specified it in Executive Order 9646. The only changes since were in 1959 and 1960, which added 49th and 50th stars to the circle following the admissions of Alaska and Hawaii as states.
Read more about Seal Of The President Of The United States: Design and Symbolism, History, Misconception
Famous quotes containing the words seal of, united states, seal, president, united and/or states:
“What is the seal of liberation?—No longer to be ashamed in our own presence.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”
—Bible: Hebrew Song of Solomon, 8:6.
“I thought my razor was dull until I heard his speech and that reminds me of a story that’s so dirty I’m ashamed to think of it myself.”
—S.J. Perelman, U.S. screenwriter, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, and Norman Z. McLeod. Groucho Marx, Horsefeathers, as a newly-appointed college president commenting on the remarks of Huxley College’s outgoing president (1932)
“The real charm of the United States is that it is the only comic country ever heard of.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“It is impossible for a stranger traveling through the United States to tell from the appearance of the people or the country whether he is in Toledo, Ohio, or Portland, Oregon. Ninety million Americans cut their hair in the same way, eat each morning exactly the same breakfast, tie up the small girls’ curls with precisely the same kind of ribbon fashioned into bows exactly alike; and in every way all try to look and act as much like all the others as they can.”
—Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe (1865–1922)