The use of seals to notarize or confirm the authenticity of documents or to brand products as in a modern trademark is rooted in antiquity. Examples of seals engraved with figures and symbols have been found from approximately 3,400 B.C. Mesopotamia. Seals are believed to have been in use before that, perhaps hundreds of years before the invention of writing.

The Romans brought the use of seals to Europe, with royalty adopting seals of majesty or “Great Seals” in the 11th Century. During the Middle Ages, the wax seal was employed by the ruling class to authenticate official documents and to seal folded messages and envelopes. The seal could be worn as an amulet or a ring that was readily available when official documentation was necessary. Seals, in short order, were employed for every form of exchange. Towns adopted official seals, merchants and craftsmen adopted identifying seals.

American colonies were granted the use of seals by England’s King. American liberty brought the desire for an official seal to stand for the United States. Within hours of adopting the Declaration of Independence, a committee was appointed to design the seal. After several revisions, the Great Seal of the United States was adopted June 20, 1782.

By 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act created two new territories out of the Indian Territory west of the Missouri River. The northern portion was to be called Nebraska. Below that and directly west of Missouri was Kansas.

After a long and bitter debate, the U.S. Senate passed the bill at the close of an all-night session in the early morning hours of March 4, 1854. Eleven weeks later, following several debates, the bill passed the House of Representatives on May 22. President Franklin Pierce signed the bill making the Kansas-Nebraska Act the organic law of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska on May 30, 1854.

Andrew H. Reeder of Easton, Penn., was appointed Territorial Governor of Kansas in July. Governor Reeder arrived in Leavenworth Territory on Oct. 7, 1854. In forming the new government, Governor Reeder designed a territorial seal for the administrative purposes of the state. The seal displayed a central shield illustrating a hunter stalking a buffalo. In contrast, above the hunting scene, a plow suggests the triumph of agriculture over nature. A pioneer stands to the right of the shield holding a rifle and hatchet. Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, stands to the left of the shield near a sheaf of grain. At their feet, a tree has been felled with an axe. Above it all a banner declares “Populi Voce Nata” (born of the popular will), a nod to Popular Sovereignty, the American policy that led to the creation of Kansas Territory. Encircling the border are the words “Seal of the Territory of Kansas — Erected May 30, 1854.”

With statehood in 1861, the newest state in the Union needed a new seal. The 1859 Wyandotte Constitution, which led to the acceptance of Kansas in the Union, called for the creation of a Great Seal of the State of Kansas. After the tide of state government was set in motion on Jan. 29, 1861, Governor Charles Robinson asked on March 30 for a congressional committee to design the seal.

John J. Ingalls, Secretary of the State Senate, submitted a design featuring a silver star rising from the clouds to join a constellation of 33 stars. The constellation of stars, representing the whole of the United States, was set in the blue firmament overlooking the rising star of Kansas. Attached at the apex of the seal was the motto “Ad astra per aspera.” Ingalls had seen the adage in 1857 while studying law in an office in Massachusetts.

John H. McDowell, Kansas State Library Committee, also submitted a design to which ad astra per aspera was preserved and added to the McDowell design. Ingalls’ clouds were replaced with a prairie landscape along a steamboat steaming down a river. Indians chase buffalo in the distance. A wagon train passes a log cabin while a farmer walks behind a team and plow turning the prairie sod. The sun is curiously rising over mountains and instead of a rising star, all 34 stars are together under a banner that declared “Ad Astra Per Aspera.” The reworked design finally resulted in the Great Seal of Kansas that we know today.

The May 25, 1861, Atchison Freedom’s Champion proudly announced, “the State Seal is at last agreed upon.” Ad astra per aspera was interpreted as “To the stars through dangers.” The Freedom’s Champion continued, “The circle is surrounded with the words ‘The Great Seal of the State of Kansas. Jan. 29, 1861.’

Ad astra per aspera was interpreted in following newspaper reports as “To the stars through adversity.” In modern usage, adversity has been replaced with the word “difficulty,” which, interestingly, was also referenced in the Freedom’s Champion article. The editor noted the motto was “peculiarly fitting ... considering the difficulties and dangers” that the “Star of Kansas” had gone through, “to be added to the cluster of 33.”

If nothing else could be known about Kansas, ad astra per aspera would say it all, for truly, the history of this place we call Kansas is as dramatic as any state that celebrates its “star” with those in the firmament of the United States, on The Way West.

Freedom’s Champion May 25, 1861, Page 2