imported post
Came accross this and thought it was interesting so I wanted to share:
History of Alabama's State Motto- "Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere"
This Latin statement translates as "We dare maintain our rights." Marie Bankhead Owen, the director of the state archives, came across the idea for this motto when she was searching for a "phrase that would interpret the spirit of our peoples in a terse and energetic sentence." The Birmingham News-Age Herald reported that she came upon a poem entitled, "What Constitutes a State?" by Sir William Jones and one stanza stood out in particular to her. "Men who their duties know. But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain."
This was not the first motto given to the state of Alabama. Following the Civil War, during the Reconstruction era, the United States legislature assigned "Here we Rest" as Alabama's state motto. Because the people of the state did not choose it, the motto was viewed as a repulsive. The meaning was meant to convey peace, as in the laying down of arms and a re-entry into the United States. But for the proud state that had lost many sons on the battlefield and once housed the capital of the Confederate States, it would not do.
When Marie Bankhead Owen came across the poem and pulled out the phrase, "We Dare Maintain Our Rights," she had found what the people of the state had been looking for. In 1923, the new state coat of arms was completed with the motto translated into Latin by Professor W. B. Saffold of the University of Alabama. Some translate the phrase, "we dare defend our rights" and this could not be truer of the state.
