January 10, 1883, the Secretary of State, Theodore F. Frelinghuysen, addressed the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, Samuel J. Randall, asking for an appropriation of $1,000 to pay for having a new seal of the United States made. “Since the year 1782,” his letter said, “when the device was adopted, there have been, it is believed, but two dies of the obverse of the seal, the only side which has been employed up to this time for sealing documents. The reverse of the seal has never been engraved by the Government. The original die of the obverse, after being in use for about sixty years, was replaced by the present die, which has become very much worn and no longer gives clear impressions. It is also to be observed with respect to the latter that it does not strictly conform to the device established by law. It seems to me, therefore, to be eminently important that a new and correct die be made without delay.” He also advised that the reverse be cut as a compliance with the law and “a proper respect to pay to the founders of this Government, at this time, to carry out the purpose so clearly expressed by them in Congress, June 20, 1782.” Falling in with this recommendation Congress appropriated, July 7, 1884 (23 Stat., 394), $1,000 “to enable the Secretary of State to obtain dies of the obverse and reverse of the seal of the United States, and appliances necessary for making impressions of the same.” Mr. Theodore F. Dwight, Chief of the Bureau of Rolls and Library of the Department of State, supervised the work of designing the new seal. He called into consultation the eminent historical scholar, Justin Winsor, and Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, of Harvard; William H. Whitmore, the genealogist, author of Elements of Heraldry (New York, 1866), at that time the only work on heraldry by an American; John Denison Chaplin, jr., an authority on engraving, associate editor of the American Cyclopædia and later of Scribner’s art cyclopædias; and James Horton Whitehouse, chief designer of Messrs. Tiffany & Co., New York. The subject was thus considered from the three points of view of history, heraldry, and art. Professor Norton wrote: A. It is greatly to be regretted that the device adopted by congress in 1782 is of so elaborate and allegorical a character. The most skilful treatment of it could hardly make it satisfactory as the design for the seal of a great nation. * * * B. But as this is now the established device, the best way, I believe, to deal with it, would be to treat it as conventionally as possible,—giving it a strictly heraldic character. * * * As to the reverse, the device adopted by Congress is practically incapable of effective treatment; it can hardly (however artistically treated by the designer) look otherwise than as a dull emblem of a masonic fraternity. * * *