TJie Correct Arms of the State of New York. 



265 



the existence of this most significant emblem has ever before been 

 pointed out or recognized as absolutely belonging to the State Arms.* 

 It has disappeared from all the pictures of the State Arms, and from 

 all the seals of the State, if it were ever upon any of the latter. And 

 yet this crown is distinctly shown upon all the three early specimens 

 of which we have been speaking. Now, while the arms of many of 

 the States symbolize independence and liberty, our own State 

 stands alone in declaring by this position of a crown at the foot of Lib- 

 erty, a distinct abandonment of royal and monarchical government, 

 jind the substitution instead thereof, of government by the people and 

 for the people. 



By some accident in making the copy of the St. Paul's Chapel paint- 

 ing for the State Library, the crown has not been observed or pre- 

 served in the copy ; nor was the sword and sceptre under the crown 

 observed and copied. Or it observed, they may have been omitted on 

 the ground that they were not an essential part of the Arms, accord- 

 ing to canons of heraldry. 



Without referring to the many arguments, which will naturally 

 occur to your minds, against distorting and altering the emblems on 

 the State Arms, I must instead beg you to dwell with me for a single 

 moment on the argument against such changes which offers itself, 

 from a consideration of the remarkable character of the three eminent 

 men who proposed the device for the Arms in 1778. They were men 

 who, we know from their history, had deliberately considered all the 

 consequences that were involved for themselves and the people, in 

 choosing the emblems which they set forth as a device of State Arms. 

 Lewis Morris, John Jay and John Sloss Hobart : — the first a descend- 

 ant of a commander under Cromwell and during the Commonwealth, 

 and a signer of the declaration of Independence ; the second a de- 

 scendant of a French fiimily seeking refuge here from monarchical 

 persecution, the first chief justice of the United States, and six years a 

 governor of the State; the third, a Son of Liberty of 1765, a judge of 

 the Supreme Court of New York, a circuit judge of the United 

 States , and a United States Senator. All three of them, prime lead- 

 ers among their fellow citizens, at this very time were suffering from 

 the devastation and wasting of their estates by the Britisli, and were 

 refugees from their homes, f The enemy was at their doors. They 

 were familiar with the old seal of the province which down to the 

 Revolution had upon the obverse side the Royal arms of Great Britain, 



* Rev. Mr. Betts speaks as if it was introduced solely by a fancy of tlie artist 

 who painted the St. Paul's Chapel specimen. N. Y. Geneal. Record. Ill, p. 18. 

 t Jones's Hist, of N. Y.,1879, vol. II, p. 48. 

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