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Florida Facts

State and Senate Seals

1985 State Seal

Great Seal of the State of Florida

In 1985 a revised Great Seal of the State of Florida was presented to the Governor and Cabinet. The previous version of the state seal had several historical errors, which were corrected in the 1985 seal. The current seal features a Seminole woman rather than a Western Plains Indian, as was depicted on earlier seals. The image of a steamboat has been made more accurate and the seal now includes a sabal palm, our state tree, instead of a cocoa palm.

Through the years, the appearance of the state seal has changed considerably. The steamboat, for instance, has been depicted in a variety of ways. Also, the earliest official state seal pictured a mountainous background, which was later removed because it did not represent Florida's flat terrain. The Indian woman has worn various types of clothing, some of them more historically accurate than others. In one version of the seal, for example, the woman wore a feather headdress of a style worn only by Indian men. Despite the changes in the appearance of the seal, the basic elements of the Great Seal of the State of Florida have remained the same.

1972 Senate Seal

The Florida Senate Seal

The 1972 Senate adopted a new official Senate seal. The perimeter of the seal contains the words "Senate" and "State of Florida." The center contains a fan of the five flags that have flown over Florida, above a disk containing the words, "In God We Trust," arched above a gavel, quill, and scroll—symbols of the Legislature. The quill depicts the writing of laws; the gavel depicts control or authority in the presiding officer; and the scroll depicts the parchment on which laws are permanently written. It is this body of written law upon which rests the very foundation of this nation's "rule of law," as opposed to "rule of men."

Senate State of Florida Seal

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