Our State Motto
and Its Origin
By CHIEF JUSTICE WALTER CLARK
From North Carolina Booklet Volume 9, in 1909
The General Assembly of 1893
(chapter 145) adopted the words ‘‘Esse
Quant Videri” as the State’s motto and
directed that these words with the date
“ 20 May, 1775,” should be placed with
our Coat of Arms upon the great seal
of the State,
The words “Esse Quant Videri’’
mean “to be rather than to seem,” and
are a suitable recognition of the honest,
sturdy, unpretending character of our
people. Beside the motto of the Union,
“E Pluribus Unum,” nearly every State
has adopted a motto. With few excep¬
tions these mottoes arc in Latin. The
reason for their being in Latin and not
in English is not far to seek. Owing
to the Latin tongue expressing the dif¬
ferent forms of the verb and of the
noun by a mere change in termination,
and not, as in English, by the addition
of participles and prepositions, it is far
more condensed and terse. The three
words, “Esse Quant Videri ,” require the
use of at least six English words to
express the same idea. For this reason
mottoes are most usually in Latin,
Curiosity has been aroused to learn
the origin of our State motto, ft is
found in Cicero in his Essay on Friend¬
ship (Cicero de Amicitia, chap. 26)
though it is not there used in the
same sense now ordinarily attached to
it. He says, “Virtute enim ipsa non lam
multi prediti esse quarn videri," i.e.
“Virtue is a quality which not so many
desire to possess as desire to seem to
possess,” or, translated literally, “For
indeed not so many wish to be endowed
with virtue as wish to seem to be.”
But in reality the phrase can be
traced much farther back. It was used
by the Greek poet Eschylus in the
famous tragedy “The Seven against
Thebes.” In line 592 of that play, it is
said (not using the Greek letters for
want of proper type) “Oil gar dokein
aristo, all’ einai thelei." Truly this is
the identical sentiment of “Esse Quarn
Videri," Plutarch, in his Life of Aris-
THE STATE, February IS, 196B
tides, chap. 3, says that when this line
was pronounced in the theater all eyes
were turned upon Aristides “the Just,”
who was present.
Socrates expressed nearly the same
idea in his Apologia, 36 E, where he
says that the victor of Olympia “makes
you seem to be happy, but I make you
so.”
The phrase is a striking one and
Cicero’s version of it has been caught
up and often used as a motto. In that
best collection of mottoes extant, the
“Coats of Arms of the British Peerage”
no less than three noble houses have
adopted it, to wit: the Earl of Winter-
ton, Earl Brownlow and Lord Lurgan.
It has been adopted by many as¬
sociations, especially literary societies.
In this State it is the motto of Wilson
Collegiate Institute and, with some
modifications, of one of the societies
at Wake Forest College.
The sentiment and its expression are
good enough. It is appropriate to North
Carolina, and her sons will make it
memorable and distinguished. Among
our sister States it can proudly take its
place between the “Sic Semper Tyran-
nis” of Virginia and the “Animis, Opi-
busque Parati" of South Carolina.
The figures on our State Coat of
Arms are Liberty and Plenty. It has
been objected that the motto has no
reference or application to the figures
on the Coat of Arms. It is very rarely
that such is the case. The national
motto, "E Pluribus Unum," has no ref¬
erence to the Eagle and Shield and
the Thunderbolts on the national Coat
of Arms. Nor has the “Excelsior" of
New York, the “Dingo" of Maine, the
“Out Translulet, Sustinet'' of Connecti¬
cut any application to the figures above
them. Indeed Virginia's “Sic Semper
Tyrannis” is one of the very few in¬
stances in which the motto bears such
reference. But, in fact, is our motto so
entirely without reference to the Coat
of Arms as is usually the case? The
figures are, as just stated, Liberty and
Plenty. Js it inappropriate to say we
prefer to be free and prosperous than
seem to be so? There have been States
that had all the appearance of liberty
and prosperity, when in truth having
lost the reality of both, they were totter¬
ing to their fall.
Indeed, as the learned and accom¬
plished president of one of our State
colleges has observed. “The motto has
a deep philosophical meaning; one
might evolve a whole system of meta¬
physics from the two basal ideas in it,
that of being (esse) and that of phe¬
nomenally (videri) on which two poles
the whole of modem theories of knowl¬
edge have hung.”
It is a little singular that until the
act of 1893 the sovereign State of
North Carolina had no motto since
its declaration of independence. It was
one of the very few States which did
not have a motto, and the only one of
the original thirteen without it. It is
very appropriate too that simultane¬
ously with the adoption of the State
motto, there was also placed on the
State Seal and Coat of Arms, the date
of the Mecklenburg Declaration of In¬
dependence — the earliest of all
American Declarations — the ever-
memorable 20 May, 1775.
It may be noted that up to the time
it became a “sovereign and indepen¬
dent State” the Colony or Province of
North Carolina bore on its great seal
“Quae sera tamen respexit." This was
taken from the first Eclogue of Virgil
(line 27) and, referring to the figure
of Liberty, meant “Which, tho late,
looked upon me” — the full line in
Virgil being “Liberty, which tho late
looked upon me indolent.” No wonder
that this was dropped by the new State.
Nothing could possibly have been more
inappropriate. Liberty came not to her
laic, bul the first of all the American
States. And it came not to a people
inert or unseeking her rewards. To
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