Our National Symbol

Written By: William McReynolds - Highlands Plateau Audubon Society | Issue: 2021/07 – July

Imagine the amazement of the early colonial and expeditionary Europeans when, arriving in the New Land, they encountered what to them were gigantic forest birds. Everything was bigger in America but two large birds were startlingly large: the Wild Turkey and Bald Eagle. 

Europe, their homeland, had a lovely collection of songbirds – small, vocal, colorful – and domesticated geese and swan, but nothing like these two giants. These were new birds and they existed only in North America.

The plentiful Bald Eagle had a looming presence in early American forests and in our hearts and minds today. The image of the Bald Eagle on our flags, coins, and seals reveals our continuing regard for these birds. 

Before I get into that, however, I have to deal with the story concerning Ben Franklin.

Some say that Ben Franklin opposed naming the Bald Eagle the National Bird and favored the Wild Turkey as a more noble bird. (Eagles are predators but are also opportunistic scavengers who will “steal” the kill of other raptors.) 

One imagines a floor fight in the Continental Congress with Franklin, later to become our first Postmaster General, holding court in boasts and bellows. None of this happened.

At the time of the Congressional action naming the Eagle the National Bird in 1782, Franklin was in Paris as the celebrated U.S. Ambassador to France, which helped America gain independence from Britain. He was not even a member of Congress. 

There is, however, a letter he wrote to his daughter back home in 1784. In this letter Franklin writes the following:

For my own part, I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly…besides he is a rank coward. The little Kingbird not bigger than a sparrow attacks him bodily and drives him out of the district.

Franklin did not “oppose” the naming of the Bald Eagle the National Bird but he did disagree with the Congressional decision doing that. 

So, in the summer of 1782 the Continental Congress voted that the Great Seal of the United States would carry the image of a Bald Eagle holding 13 arrows in the talons of one claw and an olive branch in the other. The arrows were a symbol of the strength of 13 states and the olive branch offers peace. Peace through strength. That sounds American.

Our National Seal was designed to symbolize National character. From the Bald Eagle we find courage, strength and wisdom. I leave it to you to interpret the remaining symbols on the seal. Union is the dominant theme. 

Happy July 4!. United we stand!