Part meme, part slogan, part reflection, the motto remains a basic way a prominent person or a group says “This is me/us” to the world.
The motto of many an English monarch is “Dieu et mon droit” or God and my right. This is said to have been the battle cry of Richard the Lionheart and this may well be true. If I am trying to rally my troops I’m probably not reaching for Latin… if I don’t speak the language of the land of which I am king – and Richard didn’t speak English – I may as well use my French.
On 20 December 1192 Richard was imprisoned by Duke Leopold V of Austria after a spat during the Third Crusade. Some say the motto is short a word and is meant to be “God and my right hand”. This may be cruelly so. Leopold was excommunicated for his churlishness but before he could gain absolution by a further crusade he attended a tournament, his horse fell on his left foot and he died from gangrene.
The flavour seeping through the motto – a divinity travelling with the king – has led to one of Richard’s successors losing his head and another to losing his colonies. As the authors of the US Declaration of Independence put it in reference to the latter:
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
Unlike Richard II, the Hanoverian George III had English as his first language. He never visited Hanover. Oddly enough – given that electing was part of the colonial gripe – he was never king of Hanover but its Elector. He would only become king after the Napoleonic Wars of which the US / UK 1812 War was a most peculiar part.
The new kingdom’s motto was suscipere et finire or Support and Finish. A “Stitch in time” might have better served.
The state motto of Virginia is sic semper tyrannis or Thus always to tyrants. Adopted in 1776, it got close to but did not become the motto of the new nation.
The Virginia link is important. The Virginian Jefferson later and as US secretary of state observed that “Giving medals and marks of distinction to the Indian chiefs . . . has been an ancient custom from time immemorial” and Jefferson as president would engage in the practice.
But it’s the earlier practice which informs us about the changing face of tyranny.
At the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, the still loyal colonies struck and distributed numerous “Happy While United” medals with the obverse having a soon to be “tyrant” still looking suitably kinglike.
Come 1880 and Virginia was looking to make its own treaties. The king, of course, must go and probably on Jefferson’s direction he is replaced with a soldier standing over a slain enemy. While happiness and unity continue on one side of the medal, the text for this new and gruesome obverse is “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God”.
Indians doubtless had the opportunity to reflect on a pungent irony during their dealings with the new federal government over the coming century, dealings increasing after the Louisiana Purchase, something sealed during Jefferson’s presidency with a ceremony in New Orleans on 20 December 1803.
At a broader level, the idea of federal tyranny and local freedom remains a rich, tragic and complex irony at the heart of the American soul.
During the Civil War, sic semper tyrannis was the motto of at least one regiment of the US Coloured Troops while John Wilkes Booth asserted that he cried out the slogan when he assassinated President Lincoln. When Timothy McVeigh was arrested upon the Oklahoma City bombing, he was wearing a tee shirt with both the President’s image and the words.
The underlying theme of federal tyranny is one which has travelled with the US through the centuries and has been at the forefront in the competing narratives of recent Democratic and Republican presidencies.
The US Marines use semper fidelis or Always faithful. While intended to carry an idea of fidelity to the corps and to the nation, “Semper fi” carries a strong sense of comradeship and loyalty to each other.
Of the remaining US armed forces, one of the Navy’s unofficial mottoes is semper fortis or Always courageous, while the Coast Guard has semper paratus or Always ready. The Space Force has semper supra or Always above and was founded by President Trump on 20 December 2019.
The schoolchild’s motto is “Wow” and the hair-raising Van de Graaff generator has provided good reason for its use. Dr Van de Graaff was born on 20 December 1901 and the invention was completed in 1929.
Before Nikola Tesla died in New York in 1943, he made claims that he had perfected a death beam. On hearing of his death the FBI arranged for the Office of Alien Property to seize his papers. These were inspected by one of Van de Graaff’s colleagues who reported:
His [Tesla’s] thoughts and efforts during at least the past 15 years were primarily of a speculative, philosophical, and somewhat promotional character often concerned with the production and wireless transmission of power; but did not include new, sound, workable principles or methods for realizing such results.
After the war, Van de Graaff with the colleague and another founded the High Voltage Engineering Corporation. Who knows what might have happened if the colleague, John G Trump and the President’s uncle, had kept up his real estate partnership with his mother and his brother and not turned to science.
