Out of many, one. The Latin motto on your money was chosen just hours after the Declaration of Independence, and for nearly two centuries it was the closest thing America had to an official creed.
E pluribus unum is Latin for out of many, one. It captures the central idea of the United States: that many separate states, and many different people, form a single nation without erasing their differences.
It was chosen at the very beginning. On July 4, 1776, just hours after adopting the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress appointed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to design a national seal. The motto they selected was e pluribus unum, approved for the Great Seal in 1782.
Its original meaning was about the states: thirteen disparate colonies, with different cultures and economies, becoming one country. Over time it grew into something larger, a statement about a nation built from many origins, races, and faiths.
It was the de facto national motto for most of American history. Then in 1956, at the height of the Cold War, Congress made In God We Trust the official motto, to distinguish the country from atheist communism. E pluribus unum still appears on the Great Seal and on American coins.
