Our founders' Great Seal showed us what the nation stood for. We need to heed the message of its stars again

Two hundred and 50 years ago yesterday, on 4 July 1776, there were two, not one, declarations made in Philadelphia.

- Matthew Barzun

The famous one declared independence. The second declared something every startup would recognise: we need a logo.

That second declaration would, in time, become the Great Seal of the United States. You can still see it on the back of a $1 bill and the front of every US passport. It did not come easily. Congress handed the job to the same three men who had drafted the declaration - Adams, Jefferson and Franklin. Brilliant with words, they proved hopeless with pictures. Adams reached for classical mythology. Franklin preferred scenes from scripture. Jefferson looked back to Anglo-Saxon legend. All were rejected by Congress, but their suggestion for a motto was accepted: E Pluribus Unum (From Many, One). It took nearly as long to design the Great Seal as it took to win the war.

According to the conventions of heraldry, every Great Seal required a crest: the image that captured the essence of the whole enterprise, something in addition to the eagle and the shield that would sit above the motto and give it meaning.

With the war finally won, they at last found the answer. Above the eagle’s head they placed 13 stars of different sizes arranged in an asymmetrical pattern, with rays of light emanating outward. They called it the radiant constellation.