Iowa State Motto: Our Liberties We Prize And Our Rights We Will Maintain

Iowa's state motto is Our Liberties We Prize And Our Rights We Will Maintain. The first Iowa General Assembly adopted it in 1847, just 58 days after Iowa achieved statehood. At 53 characters, it is the longest state motto in the United States.

The motto appears on the Great Seal of Iowa, carried on a scroll by the bald eagle at the top of the seal's design. It also appears on the Iowa state flag, designed by Dixie Cornell Gebhardt in 1921. Iowa is one of the few states whose motto is clearly visible on both the seal and the flag.

Iowa was organized as a territory in 1838 and admitted to the Union as the 29th state on December 28, 1846. The first Iowa General Assembly met shortly after statehood and moved quickly to establish the instruments of state government. The state seal — and the motto placed on it — were adopted 58 days after Iowa became a state.

The motto was not adopted separately from the seal. It was written into the seal's design from the beginning, carried on a scroll held by the bald eagle at the top of the composition. Iowa Code § 1.8 has governed the seal and the motto's official form since the 19th century.

In 1921, when Dixie Cornell Gebhardt designed the Iowa state flag, she drew the central imagery directly from the seal: a bald eagle carrying a blue scroll with the state motto. The flag design brought the full text of the motto into a widely flown state symbol, making Iowa's unusually long motto one of the most visible in the country.