Kansas Symbols, State Motto

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"Ad Astra Per Aspera"

(To the Stars Through Difficulties)

See State Seal

Adopted in 1861.

Language: Latin

"Ad Astra Per Aspera" has been translated as: "To the Stars Through Difficulties"

John J. Ingalls a lawyer; scholar; orator; statesman; delegate to the Kansas Constitutional Convention; secretary of the Kansas Territorial Council; Kansas State senator; Secretary of State and judge advocate during the Civil War and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel; and U.S. Senator was responsible for including this motto in the design of the great seal in 1861. While secretary of the State Senate in 1861, at the first session of the Legislature, he submitted a design for a state seal.

It is also of interest to note in this connection that Mr. Ingalls suggested the original design for the great seal of Kansas upon the admission of the state into the Union, together with the motto "Ad astra per aspera" (To the stars through difficulties). Unfortunately, however, the simplicity and beauty of his original design were marred by the committee to whom it was submitted for adoption. The history of this emblematic device can best be given in ex-Senator Ingalls' own characteristic words:

"I was secretary of the Kansas state senate at its first session after our admission in 1861. A joint committee was appointed to present a design for the great seal of the state and I suggested a sketch embracing a single star rising from the clouds at the base of a field, with the constellation (representing the number of states then in the Union) above, accompanied by the motto, "Ad astra per aspera." If you will examine the seal as it now exists you will see that my idea was adopted, but in addition thereto the committee incorporated a mountain scene, a river view, a herd of buffalo chased by Indians on horseback, a log cabin with a settler plowing in the foreground, together with a number of other incongruous, allegorical and metaphorical augmentations which destroyed the beauty and simplicity of my design.

The clouds at the base were intended to represent the perils and troubles of our territorial history; the star emerging therefrom, the new state; the constellation, like that on the flag, the Union, to which, after a stormy struggle, it had been admitted." From a biographical record prepared by G. H. Meixell.

This motto refers not only to the pioneering spirit of the early settlers, but also is a reference to the seven-year struggle to make the Territory of Kansas a state. The anti-slavery forces and slavery proponents waged battles in the electoral process as well as on the battle field. Kansas earned the nickname Bloody Kansas because of the war regarding slavery, much of which was fought on Kansas' soil.

The motto of Kansas is "Ad Astra Per Aspera," signifying (To the stars through difficulties.) It was probably formed by the combination of the ideas and words of two passages from Virgil's Aeneid: itur ad astra- Book IX, Line 641; ardua pennis astra sequi- Book XII, Lines 892-3.