Louisiana's very first iteration of the state seal, selected by then-governor, William C. C. Claiborne.
“Oftentimes we take for granted things we learned in school, like the state motto or the state flag,” said former Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State Jay Dardenne in a recent interview. “We don’t think very often about the importance of the origin that led Louisianans many years ago to believe these were important concepts for the state. These three words—Union, Justice, Confidence—they’re very important, conceptual words. But why were they chosen?”
This is the question at the heart of historian Jason Theriot’s recent research, funded by President and CEO of Valentine Chemicals Hugh Caffery. Coming from a line of Louisiana politicians, Caffery has long held an interest in state political history. Upon realizing the limited knowledge available on the motto’s definitive origins, Caffery hired Theriot—whose interests as a historian lean towards Gulf Coast culture, energy, and environment—to look into it.
His questions were: “Don’t you think this is important? What do the words ‘Union, Justice, Confidence’ actually mean? Is it possible that we have been misinterpreting this motto for all this time?”
For over two hundred years now, those words—Union, Justice, Confidence—have been synonymous with Louisiana state identity. They are emblazoned on the State Capitol, and they fly upon our flag.
But two hundred years is a long time, and the political poetics of words like these—presented with limited context—invite infinite interpretations. While researching the state’s motto, Theriot found examples of the three words used in various strategic ways to respond to specific key moments in Louisiana history.
For instance, in 1867, a writer for the Times Picayune rejoiced in the recent abolishment of slavery, saying:
“‘Union, justice, confidence,’ once more restored to our distracted land, the one great disturbing element of the past, now removed, our country reunited. . . chastened by experience, reinvigorated for its course, will move onward in its march . . . prosperous.”
"These three words—Union, Justice, Confidence—they’re very important, conceptual words. But why were they chosen?” —Former Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State Jay Dardenne
Another article, published in 1934 in the Daily Courier, used the motto’s integrity to repudiate the controversial Governor Huey P. Long, who, "discredited and cartooned throughout the nation as a crawfish feeding himself while his people suffer, is the political exponent of ‘Division, Injustice, and Lack of Confidence.’”
Likewise, a 1971 political candidate proclaimed to his constituents, “The state motto is ‘Union, Justice, and Confidence.’ Where is it?”
And then, of course, there were the outspoken critics of Edwin Edwards, one who wrote of him in the Town Talk in 1987, “ … the simpler legend ‘Graft, greed, and corruption,’ could be used . .. certainly more realistic than the current laughable legend of “Union Justice and Confidence.”
“In some sense, it’s a modern sales pitch to the people of Louisiana. Because they don’t believe in the American democratic system yet. And [in his letters] he’s not even sure that these Creole inhabitants are ready for this form of republicanism. But he’s trying to sell them on it.” —Jason Theriot
What’s more, just as easily as the repetition and recitation of a phrase, or a prayer, or a motto over time can evoke collective intention and pride, so too can it eventually reduce the effectiveness of its very meaning.
In a survey issued to a dozen or so people of different ages and backgrounds in Shreveport in 1987, every single interviewee admitted that they did not know what Louisiana’s state motto was at all.
As a starting point, Theriot reached back to the earliest known mention of the motto in any official capacity: the original creation of the Louisiana state seal by the state’s first governor, William C.C. Claiborne.
Dated 1812, the year Louisiana was officially brought into the Union, Claiborne’s seal features a pelican, wings extended, feeding ten chicks in her nest. Above her, the scales of justice are displayed beneath the word “JUSTICE,” and eighteen stars. Below the nest is the rest of the state motto: “UNION & CONFIDENCE”; and above all of it, the words “STATE OF LOUISIANA”.
This seal would become the archetype for much of the state’s official symbolism—most significantly, its flag. Though the design would evolve and change over the next two centuries, the words “Justice,” “Union,” and “Confidence” were almost always featured—eventually becoming standardized in the order “UNION, JUSTICE & CONFIDENCE” in Governor W.W. Heard’s 1912 official description of the seal.
Knowledge of the history of Louisiana’s state seal, and by extension its flag, was expanded as recently as twenty years ago when an eighth-grade student in Houma advocated, before the state legislature, for standardizing the flag’s design to include the historically-accurate three drops of blood. While working on his middle school social studies project, David Joseph Louiviere had discovered that flags in active use across the state did not feature the drops at all or featured inconsistent numbers of drops as described in Heard’s 1912 description of the seal. In the direct aftermath of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Louiviere’s plea to the Legislature re-invoked the power of the state symbolism, reminding Louisiana that it was founded upon ideals of the state sacrificing itself for its citizens. Governor Kathleen Blanco signed the description of the new flag into law on May 25, 2006.
A new official state flag would not actually come to exist until October 2010, after Baton Rouge journalist Glen Duncan dedicated himself to researching the history, law, and tradition surrounding the Louisiana state flag in order to create a new “official” version of it, designed by Louisiana artist Curtis Vann, to be issued to all manufacturers nationwide. His extensive findings on the flag’s somewhat disorganized history as a state symbol are compiled in the book A Modern History of the Louisiana Pelican Flag; Or a tale of the surprisingly difficult quest for the ‘official’ state flag.
Recognizing the flag and motto’s shared lineage, Theriot turned to Duncan. Surely, in researching the flag, and consequentially the seal, he had come across some reference to the origins of the words featured so prominently on it?
Though Duncan had more insight into the early history of the state symbols “than anyone else,” even he wasn’t aware of the motto’s specific history beyond its origination on Claiborne’s seal.
Next, Theriot approached Dardenne—who, in the capacity of Secretary of State, had been constitutionally responsible for the state seal during his time in office. Though he shared his own beliefs on what the motto stood for, Dardenne also wasn’t sure of the motto’s origins or original intent beyond the fact that it had come from Claiborne. “So, you’ve got elected state officials whose jobs are to know what these things mean, and even they aren’t certain,” said Theriot. “People just haven’t given this origin question a serious thought.”
Image courtesy of Theriot.
A document Theriot discovered in the Tulane archives, featuring one of the earliest known examples of the Louisiana State Seal (featuring the motto, "Justice, Union & Confidence") in use, from March 1813—only six months after Claiborne annexed it for the first time.
Finally, Theriot went to the archives. Specifically, he turned to Claiborne—the assumed author of the state motto himself.
A young congressman from Tennessee, Claiborne was a protégé of President Thomas Jefferson, who in 1801 appointed Claiborne as governor and superintendent of the Mississippi Territory. Later, in 1803 Claiborne would be the one to formally accept the transfer of the Louisiana territory from France on behalf of Jefferson, afterwards acting as governor of the Orleans territory (most of what is today considered Louisiana). In 1812, after Louisiana was officially admitted into the Union, he was elected by white male property owners as the first official governor of the state of Louisiana.
The Louisianans Claiborne governed had been through the ringer—they had been ruled by the French for just under a century, the Spanish for decades, the French again for mere months, and now they were told they were to be American. The state’s inhabitants were diverse—of Native, French, Spanish, Caribbean and African (including enslaved individuals and free people of color)—not to mention the influx of American settlers from surrounding states.
“None of them trusted him,” said Theriot. “He had to gradually build up a relationship with the leaders. He never learned to speak French. How did he even communicate with these people?” His time as governor was marked by racial tensions—heightened in the wake of the Haitian Revolution, then boiled over in the 1811 German Coast Uprising, the largest revolt of the enslaved in the United States—and foreign threats, which would eventually culminate in the War of 1812 and the Battle of New Orleans.
Within this turbulent context, Theriot concludes, “Union, Justice, Confidence” emerges.
Studying Claiborne’s speeches and letters in the six-volume Official Letter Books of W.C.C. Claiborne, 1801–1816, compiled and edited by Dunbar Rowland in 1917, Theriot hoped to find some evidence of Claiborne’s rationale for the motto. Though he found no explicit exposition, he did glean an understanding of Claiborne’s attachment to those terms, and what they meant to him.
“About every third or fourth letter, when he’s talking about political issues, he’s using the words ‘union, justice, confidence,’” said Theriot. “You can pick it up, and it’s not just like for one year. It’s the whole thirteen years.” Of course, such phrases were likely common among political discourse at the time—“I’m sure Jefferson’s using those words,” he said. “You can probably read the Adams papers, same thing.”
But in carefully dissecting the letters of Claiborne, Theriot has deduced an interpretation of the state motto and the ideals that led to its creation.
Union
The first word of the state motto, within the context of Claiborne’s world, cannot be separated from the ideals of the United States as a whole—ideals that Louisianans had not yet wholly embraced, but which were fundamental to Claiborne’s vision for his country, the political project of American leaders of the time.
“In some sense, it’s a modern sales pitch to the people of Louisiana,” said Theriot. “Because they don’t believe in the American democratic system yet. And [in his letters] he’s not even sure that these Creole inhabitants are ready for this form of republicanism. But he’s trying to sell them on it.”
[Read This Next: American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith]
A letter written by Claiborne on January 29, 1811 demonstrates his belief in the American dream of the “Union”:
“I am aware that the minds of many of our Citizens are not entirely reconciled to such a change of Government; but . . . It will place beyond the reach of change our political destinies, and attach forever the Territory of Orleans, in its present extent, to the American Union. A Union which has established and which supports the freedom, the greatness of our Country: A Union on the perpetuity of which depends the safety, the liberty, the prosperity and happiness of ourselves and posterity.”
Justice
According to his writings, Claiborne’s belief in the ideal of justice was drawn directly from that of the still-young United States Constitution, with its pursuit of “justice for all” and the promise of the new government to secure individuals’ rights through the rule of law.
In his very first address to the legislative council and House of Representatives of the Mississippi Territory as governor in 1801, Claiborne established that justice and due process were at the forefront of his concerns: “the people are entitled to Justice ‘in the most cheap, easy and expeditious manner, promptly & without delay, conformably to the Laws’.”
There is also evidence that the governor was apprehensive about being seen as holding more power than the law afforded him. “He wanted to make sure that he was not perceived as some type of zealot or a dictator,” said Theriot in conversation with Duncan. “He wanted to be fair down the lane, even to the detriment of his own policies or his own views.”
Confidence
Confidence, for Claiborne, seemed to be equated with leadership’s obligation to earn the trust of the governed. Theriot cites multiple examples throughout Claiborne’s life in which he appears to actively seek the approval and acceptance of the people of Louisiana, in which he works to establish their confidence in him as a leader. “Confidence,” deduces Theriot, “means for him instilling confidence in the governed, in the people, that what he is doing and others are doing is the right thing.”
In Claiborne’s inaugural speech as governor of the new state of Louisiana on July 30, 1812, he told his constituents, “If ever a people had cause to repose with confidence in their government, we are that people.”
Almost a decade before, he had written on July 1, 1804 of his and his government’s responsibility to inspire such confidence in the people of Louisiana, “ … charged as I came with the preservation of the peace & safety of Louisiana, I owe it to myself and to my country to use all the means in my power to insure these great objects … let our fellow citizens then repose with confidence on the vigilance of the constituted authorities.”
The work is not done—Theriot has aspirations to consult other current and former politicians about their interpretations of the motto. There are more archives to be paged through, some of them in French (which Theriot does not speak, and therefore cannot easily access). One could theoretically carry the question of “Union, Justice, Confidence” back to the values of America’s founding fathers who so inspired the young Claiborne himself. You could even carry it forward through Louisiana’s complicated history—place it beside the certain contradictory laws and systems sanctioned by the state government, not the least of those being forced enslavement, which did not end until more than fifty years after Claiborne issued his official seal.
And there at the center of Theriot’s investigation is the question: “Is the state motto still relevant today?”
“Louisiana politics has strayed so far from those ideals, some would argue,” said Theriot. “So is there any underlying message here that we should return to the founding principles as laid out by Claiborne and the founders?”
