Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/426

 420 III, except during the short interval of the protectorate of Cromwell, when the trial of the King was substituted for the man on horseback. Even Cromwell retained the equestrian figure on the seal of Scotland, but he characteristically mounted himself on the horse. In the reign of William and Mary the seal bore the impress of the king and queen both mounted on horseback.

"Washington has been selected as the emblem for our shield, as a type of our ancestors, in his character of princeps majorum. In addition to this, the equestrian figure is consecrated in the hearts of our own people by the local circumstance that on the gloomy and stormy 22d of February, 1862, our permanent government was set in motion by the inauguration of President Davis under the shadow of the statue of Washington.

"The committee are dissatisfied with the motto on the seal proposed by the House resolution. The motto proposed is as follows: Deo Duce Vincemus (Under the leadership of God we will conquer).

"The word duce is too pagan in its signification, and is degrading to God, because it reduces him to the leader of an army; for scarcely does the word duce escape the lips before the imagination suggests exercitus an army for a leader to command. It degrades the Christian God to the level of pagan gods, goddesses and heroes, as is manifest from the following quotation; Nil desperandum Tenero duce. This word duce is particularly objectionable because of its connection with the word 'vincemus'—(we will conquer). This connection makes God the leader of a physical army, by means of which we will conquer, or must conquer. If God be our leader we must conquer, or he would not be the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, nor the God of the Christian. This very doubt implied in the word vincemus so qualifies the omnipotence of the God who is to be our 'leader,' that it imparts a degrading signification to the word duce in its relations to the attributes of the Deity.

"The word vincemus is equally objectionable because it implies that war is to be our normal slate; besides, it is in the future tense—'we will conquer.' The future is always uncertain, and therefore, it implies doubt. What becomes of our motto when we shall have conquered? The future becomes an accomplished fact, and our motto thus loses its significance.

"In addition to this there are only two languages in which the words will and shall are to be found—the English and the German—and in those they are used to qualify a positive condition of the mind and