Louisiana State Motto: Union, Justice and Confidence

When Governor Claiborne created Louisiana's first state seal in 1812, the motto read 'Justice, Union & Confidence' — with Justice appearing first. Historian Jason Theriot located a document at Tulane University archives signed by Claiborne in March 1813 that shows one of the earliest official uses of this arrangement. Justice came before Union on the original seal.

During the Civil War, Louisiana was divided. New Orleans fell to Union forces in April 1862. The Union-controlled portion of Louisiana operated a separate government that needed to demonstrate loyalty to Washington. In redesigning official symbols, Union administrators changed the motto's word order: Union came first. The political message was direct — federal union took precedence over local concerns.

After the war ended and Louisiana was readmitted to the Union in 1868, the new word order remained. 'Union, Justice and Confidence' became the permanent form. No later legislation formalized this change in isolation — it simply became the standard through consistent use. Governor William Wright Heard standardized the entire seal design on April 30, 1902, cementing the post-Civil War arrangement.

William C.C. Claiborne arrived in Louisiana in December 1803 as the newly appointed territorial governor. He was 28 years old, spoke no French, and was governing a region whose population was predominantly French-speaking, Catholic, and deeply resentful of American control. Louisiana residents had been ruled by France for a century, then Spain for decades, then France briefly again before the United States purchased the territory.

From his first days in Louisiana, Claiborne used three words repeatedly in his official correspondence: union, justice, and confidence. He used them to persuade skeptical Creole leaders that American governance would be fair, that the new legal system would deliver justice, and that residents could have confidence in republican government. The six-volume Official Letter Books of W.C.C. Claiborne (compiled 1917) shows no single explanation for why he chose these three words — they simply formed the core of his political vocabulary.

When Louisiana became the 18th state on April 30, 1812, Claiborne won election as the first state governor. He immediately designed a new seal, replacing the territorial eagle with a brown pelican feeding its young — a Catholic symbol of charity that resonated with Louisiana's French heritage. The three words from nine years of letters became the motto.

The brown pelican on Louisiana's seal is a pelican in her piety — an old heraldic image of a mother pelican tearing open her own breast to feed her young when no other food is available. The image is centuries old in Catholic iconography, representing self-sacrifice and charity. For a colony and later state with deep French Catholic roots, this was not an arbitrary symbol.

The motto 'Union, Justice and Confidence' sits on a white ribbon beneath the pelican nest on both the seal and the flag. The legislature adopted the flag on July 1, 1912 — the vote was 71 to 1 in the House and 32 to 0 in the Senate. A solid blue field carries the white pelican at center, with the white ribbon beneath it displaying the motto in blue letters.

The state flag's motto ribbon remained unchanged for over a century — until an eighth-grade student from Ferriday noticed that the pelican on the official flag lacked blood drops that should be visible from the self-wounding breast. The student brought it to state officials' attention, prompting a correction in 2010.