288 



Tlie Correct Arms of the State of New York. 



Some of them wearing around their necks the Yorkist collar of suns 

 and roses, the livery of Edward IV." But I need not give other ex- 

 tracts from English writers to illustrate the prominence which the 

 cognizance of the sun has had in the history of the family of York. 



12. The last topic of this evening's undertaking is to mention some 

 of the conclusions of the report of the commission on the correct arms 

 to the legislature, which I am able to do, having been appointed to 

 act as their secretarj^ Their recommendations to the legislature 

 constitute one of the steps of progress since the reading of the first 

 paper. The commission composed of the governor, the secretarv of 

 state and comptroller, recommends the re-establishment of the original 

 arms by a law, in which shall be embodied a full description of the 

 Arms; they maintain as belonging to the Arms all those features which 

 had disappeared or had been strangely altered ; they recommend that 

 the departments of the State and the courts shall place no other device 

 on their seals than the Arms of the State, and they propose that the 

 standard of the State bearing the Arms shall be hoisted upon the cap- 

 itol while the legislature is in session along with the flag of the United 

 States. They recommend that a year shall be allowed to elapse be- 

 fore these recommendations should be enacted into a law, so as to 

 give an opportunity for an expression of opinion on the subject by 

 any who take an interest in it. 



This process of retracing our steps to where we started from in 1778, 

 may seem needlessly tedious, but it took Pennsylvania several years to 

 complete its remedial legislation on the subject, and it took Ohio four 

 years to obtain the same results. 



The Arms which these fathers of the State have left us as their legacy 

 bring us on the one hand into the direct use of a symbol which for 

 now nearly four hundred years, w^hen found in its appropriate place, 

 has suggested to the mind of the beholder the interests which belong 

 to the name of York ; with the difference that the symbol of the 

 Highlands and the Hudson being conjoined in the same shield with 

 that of the sun, the sight now suggests to us the interests and sym- 

 pathies of the people of the whole State of New York. If there be 

 any one who has any doubts about the significance and grand express- 

 iveness for this State of that portion of the device of the Arms which 

 represents the great geographical feature of the State, the chasm of the 

 Hudson river, let him familiarize himself with the eloquent descrip. 

 tions of the marvelous geographical position of ^s'ew York in the Union 

 as given repeatedly by Hon. Horatio Seymour in his discourses touch- 

 ing upon the subject, and his doubts will disappear. 



The briefest summary of the meaning of our Arms is, that the shield 



