Arkansas State Coat of Arms

The coat of arms appears on official state documents, government buildings, and public correspondence across Arkansas. It is the same design as the state seal, created for the Arkansas Territory around 1820 and carried forward into statehood in 1836 without change.

The design centers on the Goddess of Liberty, a tall figure holding a pole topped with a Phrygian cap, a pointed hat that was a symbol of freedom in the ancient world and a popular emblem of democracy in the 1800s. On one side stands the Sword of Justice. On the other stands the Angel of Mercy. An eagle fills the base. A shield representing commerce and farming sits in the middle of the composition.

Arkansas is the only U.S. state with the exact motto Regnat Populus. The same motto has been on the emblem for more than 200 years.

Congress formed Arkansas Territory on July 4, 1819, splitting it from Missouri Territory. The first territorial assembly met almost immediately and needed an official seal. Samuel Calhoun Roane, the recording clerk of that assembly, designed one: a composition built around the Goddess of Liberty, the Sword of Justice, the Angel of Mercy, an eagle, and a central shield. It became the emblem of Arkansas from its very first days as a political entity.

When Arkansas was admitted to the Union on June 15, 1836, as the 25th state, the state constitution directed that Arkansas would keep using the territorial seal until the legislature chose a new one. No new seal was ever chosen. The frontier territory's emblem became the official coat of arms of the state, unchanged.

The design carried one mistake for nearly a century. The original Latin motto was written as Regnant Populi, plural forms of both the verb and the noun, when the correct singular form is Regnat Populus. The error entered the design when Roane drafted it and nobody caught it at statehood in 1836, during the Civil War in 1861, or through Reconstruction. It took 88 years. On May 24, 1907, Acting Governor Xenophon O. Pindall signed a bill that corrected the Latin and made the motto legally accurate for the first time.

The corrected motto has remained unchanged since 1907. Arkansas Code § 1-4-107 defines the current official design.

Every figure on the Arkansas coat of arms was chosen to make the same point from a different direction: this is a self-governing republic, and the people hold the authority. Liberty, justice, mercy, national belonging, commerce, and farming all appear together in one composition.

The Arkansas coat of arms was designed at the very beginning of the territory's existence, in 1820, by the first person who needed to create an official seal. Samuel Calhoun Roane built it around the idea that had brought settlers to the frontier in the first place: the right to govern themselves. Every figure on the coat of arms supports that idea.

The Goddess of Liberty says freedom is the center of everything. The Sword of Justice and the Angel of Mercy say that government must enforce its authority, but never without compassion. The eagle says Arkansas is part of the American republic. The shield says the economy is what makes that republic real day to day: rivers, trade, and farming.

The motto brings it all together in three words: Regnat Populus. The People Rule. No other state chose this phrase. Arkansas chose it first, in 1820, before it was even a state.

The design has kept the same composition since around 1820: the Goddess of Liberty, the Sword of Justice, the Angel of Mercy, the eagle, the shield, and the motto. The only significant change in its entire history was the 1907 correction of the motto's Latin grammar, which changed the stated meaning without changing anything visible in the design.

The territorial version from around 1820 used the incorrect motto Regnant Populi. That version served as both the territorial seal and the state seal from 1836 until 1907. The corrected version, with Regnat Populus, has been in use since May 24, 1907, as defined in Arkansas Code § 1-4-107.