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V. ELEMENTS OF DESIGN IN THE SENATE'S CARPET (continued)

The Liberty Pole and Cap, and Balance of Justice

The identification of possible sources for the seal and the chain motifs was a comparatively easy problem to resolve. A special problem for the design, however, was the placement of the liberty cap and pole. The 1791 description of the carpet reads: "under the arms, on the Pole which supports the Cap of Liberty, is hung the Balance of Justice," a singularly uninformative phrase, the first few words of which could be translated only as "beneath the seal." Did this mean the motif appeared alone, inside the circle of state seals, or was it perhaps inside one of the links of the chain?

In a critical examination of Doolittle's engraving of the chain of states, the eye is caught by the unifying link, with the United States and the two tiny padlocks attaching it to the rest of the circle. Perhaps the notion of using the United States Seal again in the chain of states seemed redundant, since the Seal already spoke brilliantly for itself in the center of the carpet. Could it be that the seal was removed from this link and replaced by the liberty pole and cap? There is only one problem with this hypothesis: the Pennsylvania Gazette correspondent saw the liberty pole and cap and the balance of justice "under the arms." If they had simply been substituted for the seal, they would have appeared above the arms, not below them.

It is tempting to think that this anachronism arose from a simple manipulation of the chain of states in order to show off the two symbols more clearly. Since the orientation of the carpet was most probably towards the door rather than towards the Vice President on his dais, it would be logical to place these two tokens of American liberty and justice at the bottom of the chain where their symbolism could be immediately recognized and appreciated by persons entering the door of the Senate Chamber.

This, then, is the conjecture on which reconstruction of the motif in the reproduced carpet rests. A corollary of this assumption is the arrangement of the state seals, beginning to the left of the unifying link containing the pole, cap, and scales, with New Hampshire, and ending to the right of it with the seal of Georgia, thus preserving the traditional north to south order of the states within the chain.

The combination of these two long-popular symbols of liberty and justice in the Senate carpet was an original contribution to American iconography: liberty and justice for all in pictorial form. Not that it was unknown for separate motifs to be combined into a new symbol; this happened all the time in the development of American symbolism. Another example of the same sort of combination of motifs occurred in the Georgia 1776 four dollar piece, where the liberty pole and cap were combined with the caduceus, symbolizing commerce, and a cornucopia, denoting plenty. In the case of the Senate carpet both symbols traced their origins to classical times, but were not used "crossed" with one another before their appearance in the Senate carpet.

The balance had been a symbol of justice since Roman times. As an attribute of Aequitas, Goddess of Equity, its classical form could be seen in Philadelphia at the Library Company in Montfaucon's Antiquity Explained, of 1721, a popular sourcebook for engravings of classical motifs among craftsmen from painters to textile designers. In Joseph Richardson's Iconology, printed in London in 1779, a compilation of emblematic figures based on Cesare Ripa's popular seventeenth century emblem books, the scales signified "exactness and rectitude," and were associated with his personifications of "Justice," "Politicks" and "Impartiality." In America the balance appeared as a symbol of justice and equality in many representations, from Masonic engravings to the sixty-five dollar note of the Continental currency, dated January 14, 1779, where it was combined with the motto "fiat Justitia:" "let there be justice."

The liberty pole and Phrygian cap also derived from classical sources. The cap itself had begun its symbolic life as early as 750 BC as a conventional item of clothing, worn in Asia Minor in ancient Phrygia and Troy as a sign of national independence and liberty. In Roman representations, Athena, Goddess of Athens, sometimes wore a Phrygian cap, as did King Midas, the Amazons, Mithras, and other figures associated with the near East.

The cap was joined to the pole as a symbol of freedom when Salturnius conquered Rome in 263 BC; in a burst of inspiration he raised the cap on a pikestaff to show that slaves who joined his fight would be freed, thus encouraging their participation on his side. Later, after Caesar's murder, the conspirators symbolically declared their wish for freedom by hoisting the same cap and pole. In another sphere, the Roman Goddess of Liberty came to be associated with the cap which she held atop a pike as an attribute signifying her alliance with freedom.

In the seventeenth century, with the revival of interest in things classical, Liberty appeared in England. Thomas Hobbes' Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Civil Society, of 1651, contained a sole illustration, a frontispiece which included a figure of Liberty carrying the pikestaff crowned not by a Phrygian cap but by a Cavalier's hat, like those worn in contemporary England. Together with the figures "Religion," and "Dominion," this Liberty represented to Hobbes and other thinkers one of the three most important characteristics of British society.

A century later, when Thomas Hollis evolved the notion of a patriotic figure of Britannia in which the ideas "Britain" and "Liberty" would be combined, he had the new figure hold the liberty pole and classical Phrygian cap as a symbol of freedom under parliamentary rule. [17] In 1779 Joseph Richardson borrowed this Britannia for his Iconology, adding a verbal explanation of its symbolism: "The cap of liberty by her side is an allusion to the happy constitution of this country, to the equity of the laws and freedom of the subject." [18]

Long before the invention of Britannia, however, the liberty cap and pole appeared in American iconography. The earliest known representation of them appeared on the seal of the Province of North Carolina, adopted in 1730; here the cap is again a Cavalier's hat. The classical cap also occurs as a symbol of Liberty, on the seal of the Province of Georgia, adopted in 1733. Here, a figure of Liberty wears the cap on her head, holding in her hand a cornucopia symbolic of "plentiful harvests."

FIGURE 24: Flag of Webb's Additional Continental Regiment, 1777. Courtesy of the Sons of the Revolution, Philadelphia. Photograph by Edward W. Richardson.

Paul Revere used the symbol freely in his engravings and cartoons throughout the 1760's and up to 1776, when it was taken over by Pierre Eugene Du Simitière for the first design of the United States seal, and for the New Jersey State seal. George Wythe of Williamsburg used it in his design for the Virginia seal, while in 1777 Webb's Additional Continental Regiment adopted the Cavalier's hat on pole for its flag carried during the Revolutionary War.

After 1776 the liberty pole and cap appeared in prints by other American artists such as Abraham Godwin and Robert Edge Pine, who used it in his painting "America Lamenting," of 1778. To follow Pine's 1778 painting of "America Lamenting" makes an interesting illustration of the sort of borrowing of ideas from paintings and engravings by other craftsmen which was common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1781 in London, Joseph Strutt published a print, "America Lamenting" taken from Pine's painting, which received wide distribution. Four years later, in 1785, an English printed textile appeared with "America Lamenting," derived directly from Strutt's print, combined with other motifs, in brown on white cotton-linen cloth. Later, the print itself was copied in America by Amos Doolittle and, in the early nineteenth century, the design was borrowed by an anonymous needleworker whose silk embroidery version is now at Winterthur.

FIGURE 25: "America Lamenting," engraving by Joseph Strutt after Robert Edge Pine, London, 1781. Independence National Historical Park Collection.

One very appealing use of the motif in furniture brings the symbol home to Philadelphia. It appears on the crest rail of the famous "Rising Sun Chair" in the Assembly Room in Independence Hall, where it did not lack for public notice.

Finally, a most interesting use of the liberty pole and cap involves the juxtaposition but not crossing of this motif with the balance of justice, and provides the only precedent for the use of this symbol together with the balance in the Senate carpet. This was the gold pattern coin known as "Immune Columbia." Cast in 1785 by Thomas Wyon, of Birmingham, England, who hoped to make it the new coinage for the United States, it showed America personified as Columbia, holding in one hand the balance of justice, and in the other the furled flag used as a liberty pole, with the Phrygian cap hung from its top.

FIGURE 26: "Immune Columbia" pattern coin designed by Thoma Wyon and struck in Birmingham, England, 1785. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, Division of Numismatics.

FIGURE 27: Detail of English printed textile with vignette of "America Lamenting" from the Pine-Strutt engraving, surrounded by foliage and trophies, c. 1785. Courtesy of The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.

FIGURE 28: Needlework picture, watercolor and silk embroidery, New York, c. 1815-1830. Courtesy of The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.


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Last Updated: 30-Nov-2007