Seal Of The United States

The Great Seal of the United States is used to authenticate certain documents issued by the United States government. The phrase is used both for the physical seal itself (which is in the keeping of the U.S. Secretary of State), and more generally for the design impressed upon it. The Great Seal was publicly first used in 1782.
See more at Wikipedia.org...

The seal used by the United States in congress assembled, shall be the seal of the United States, viz.: ARMS, pale-ways of thirteen pieces argent and gules; a chief azure; the escutcheon on the breast of the American eagle displayer proper, holding in his dexter talon, an olive branch, and in his sinister, a bundle of thirteen arrows, all proper, and in his beak a scroll, inscribed with this motto, "E pluribus unum." For the CREST: over the head of the eagle which appears above the escutcheon, a glory, or breaking through a cloud, proper, and surrounding thirteen stars, forming a constellation argent on an azure field. REVERSE, a pyramid unfinished. In the zenith an eye in a triangle, surrounded with a glory proper: over the eye, these words, "Annuit caeptis." On the base of the pyramid, the numerical letters, MDCCLXXVI; and underneath, the following motto, "Novus ordo sectorum." Resolution of Congress, June 20, 1782.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.