Mississippi Coat of Arms

Legislative Description of the Mississippi Coat of Arms

MIssissippi Coat of Arms

..a Shield in color blue, with an eagle upon it with extended pinions, holding in the right talon a palm branch and a bundle of arrows in the left talon, with the word “Mississippi” above the eagle; the lettering on the shield and the eagle to be in gold; below the shield two branches of the cotton stalk, saltierwise, as in submitted design, and a scroll below extending upward and one each side three-fourths of the length of the shield; upon the scroll, which is to be red, the motto be printed in gold letters upon white spaces, as in design accompanying, the motto to be –VIRTUTE et ARMIS” which means by valor and arms
Chapter 37, Laws of the Extraordinary Session of 1894.”

Source: Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services

History of the Adoption of the Mississippi Coat of Arms

According to the Mississippi Blue Book,

this design was declared the official state Coat-of-Arms by the 1894 Legislature, but the original law was not brought forward in the 1906 revision of the Mississippi Code. The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in May 2000 that Mississippi did not have an official Coat-of-Arms

In an executive order signed by Governor Ronnie Musgrove May 5, 2000, seventeen committee members were tasked with recommending designs for a coat of arms to the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the Speaker no later than May 4, 2001. On December 12, 2000, the Commission advised the legislature to make the 1894 coat of arms the official state coat of arms. The legislature approved the 1894 design for the state coat of arms February 7, 2001. (MIssissippi Archives, Series 2540: Advisory Commission on the Mississippi State Flag and the Mississippi Coat of Arms)