Definition
The Seal of the United States is the official emblem and authentication device of the federal government, used to certify the authenticity of documents issued under the authority of the United States. It exists in two forms: the Great Seal of the United States, which serves ceremonial, diplomatic, and authenticating functions, and the lesser administrative seals of individual federal departments and officers. In legal usage, "the Seal of the United States" most commonly refers to the Great Seal.
The Great Seal functions as both a heraldic symbol and a legal instrument. When affixed to a document — by impression, embossing, or attestation — it certifies that the document is genuine and issued with federal authority. Treaties, presidential commissions, extradition papers, and letters of credence to foreign governments are among the documents customarily authenticated by the Great Seal. Its custody is vested in the Secretary of State by statute.
As a legal device, the seal performs three distinct functions:
1. Authentication: The presence of the seal, or a certified attestation that it was affixed, is treated as prima facie evidence of the genuineness of the document it accompanies.
2. Solemnization: Certain instruments — particularly those of constitutional or diplomatic significance — are not legally complete until sealed. The seal transforms a mere writing into an official act of the United States.
3. Jurisdiction and sovereignty: In international law, the seal signals that a document originates from the sovereign government of the United States, which carries legal consequences for recognition by foreign tribunals.
---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A seal is a device used to fasten, close, or authenticate something; broadly, any emblem or stamp used as a mark of authenticity or ownership.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A piece of wax, wafer, or other tenacious substance, affixed to a letter, document, or other paper, and stamped with an engraved device as proof of authenticity; also, the engraved device itself."
The common understanding of a seal — as something that closes or fastens — captures only the authentication function. The legal seal of the United States carries additional weight: it is a constitutional and statutory instrument whose presence, attestation, or absence can determine the legal validity of a federal act, the admissibility of a document in court, and the standing of a communication before a foreign sovereign. The decorative imagery of the eagle and escutcheon, familiar from currency and passports, is the visible surface of a legal device with formal legal consequences.
---
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers in the Law Mind corpus will encounter the Seal of the United States most often in three contexts: constitutional and administrative law (where sealed commissions and appointments arise), federal evidence law (where authenticated public documents must bear the seal or a certified copy), and diplomatic and international law (where sealed instruments govern treaty obligations and official communications with foreign states).
A critical navigational point: early American legal sources, including founding-era statutes and diplomatic correspondence, treat the custody and use of the Great Seal as a matter of constitutional significance, not merely administrative protocol. The seal's role in Marbury v. Madison — where the delivery and affixation of a commission was central to the dispute — illustrates how the seal could carry jurisdictional weight in litigation. Researchers tracing the authentication of federal documents in historical sources must attend carefully to whether a document was sealed, attested as sealed, or merely signed, because these distinctions had legal consequences that older authorities treated as substantive.
Jurisdictional traps arise in historical sources because pre-twentieth-century cases and treatises sometimes conflate the Great Seal with the seals of individual executive departments, each of which has its own statutory basis and authenticating function. The seal of the Department of State is not interchangeable with the Great Seal, though both may appear on official documents.
Researchers working with authenticated copies of federal records in court proceedings should be alert to the evidentiary rules governing certified copies under seal, which evolved through successive versions of the Federal Rules of Evidence and their predecessors. The seal does not appear on the document as a wax impression in modern federal practice; attestation by the officer having custody typically substitutes.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides the most detailed historical legal description of the Great Seal in the American tradition, quoting the heraldic blazon at length: arms paleways of thirteen pieces argent and gules; a chief azure; the escutcheon on the breast of the American eagle displayed proper, holding in the dexter talon an olive branch, and in the sinister a bundle of thirteen arrows; with the motto "E Pluribus Unum" on a scroll in the beak. Bouvier's entry reflects the seal as formally adopted by the Continental Congress and carries through to the seal recognized in federal law.
Bouvier treats the seal primarily as a heraldic and ceremonial object, describing its visual elements with legal precision appropriate to a period when the seal's physical form was the primary means of authenticating federal instruments. What Bouvier does not address — and what later legal development fills in — is the evidentiary framework for using certified copies bearing attested seals as substitutes for sealed originals in judicial proceedings. Nineteenth-century treatises generally assumed the seal itself would be available or directly verifiable; twentieth-century evidence law moved toward attestation and certification as the operative legal mechanism.
The heraldic description Bouvier preserves is legally significant beyond symbolism: the specific blazon is the statutory description of the seal, and any reproduction or imitation for fraudulent purposes is measured against it.
---
Jurisdictional Note
The Seal of the United States is a creature of federal law, with no state-law analog. Individual states maintain their own great seals, which have parallel authenticating functions under state law and in federal courts for the authentication of state records. Confusion between federal and state seals occasionally appears in historical sources and can affect the authentication analysis for documents of ambiguous provenance.
---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry addresses the Great Seal directly. For related constitutional context, see: Birthright Citizenship — The Fourteenth Amendment and United States v. Wong Kim Ark (The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia), which addresses the nature of federal sovereign authority and citizenship documentation bearing official attestation. For federal criminal consequences of seal misuse and counterfeiting, see: Conspiracy to Defraud the United States (18 USC 371) (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia).
---