The Mace as a Symbol of Authority

by Karl Kurtz

On a visit to Virginia's marvelously historic and beautifully restored state capitol last week, I saw a mace on display in a glass case in the old House chamber.  Sitting next to it was a stack of bookmarks, available for the curious visitor, entitled "The Symbol of Authority."  Here are excerpts from that bookmark, one of a series of clever informational handouts produced by Clerk of the House Bruce Jamerson:

During the Middle Ages, the mace was introduced as a weapon of war.  Medieval bodyguards, known as sergeants-at-arms, carried maces to protect kings and high officials in processions among the people.  Gradually, more useful weapons replaced the mace.  In the fourteenth century, the mace had become an ornament of beauty made of precious metals and decorated with jewels.  Thus, the mace evolved into an object that was symbolic of royal authority and power.  The British House of Commons was the first body to use the mace in this manner.

The current mace of the House of Delegates is a symbolic successor to the silver ceremonial mace that was presented to the Virginia House of Burgesses by the royal governor in 1700.  The silver mace was sold after the Revolution as the legislators felt that it too strongly represented links to the royal past.  The House met without a mace for nearly 180 years.

In 1974, the current mace was purchased in England by the Jamestown Yorktown Foundation and presented to the House of Delegates....

During current legislative sessions, the sergeant-at-arms carries the ten-pound mace into the chamber and places it into a cradle in front of the Speaker’s desk....

I knew that the U. S. House of Representatives displays a mace on a pedestal next to the speaker, but I didn't know about state legislative use of this symbol.  I asked Bruce Jamerson about it and he said that the only other legislature with a mace that he knew about was the South Carolina House of Representatives, which, unlike Virginia, still has its original symbol.  Sure enough, the South Carolina House website says that its mace, purchased in England in 1756 by the "'Commons House of Assembly of the Province of South Carolina' for 90 guineas," is the oldest one in legislative use in the United States.

When I returned to the office I asked the same question that I had put to Bruce and was not surprised to find that my colleague, Kae Warnock, knower of all things state capitol, had the answer. Three other legislative chambers besides the U.S., Virginia and South Carolina houses use the mace as a symbol of authority: the Pennsylvania House and Senate and the Maryland House of Delegates.

A speech about Maryland's mace by Dr. Edward C. Papenfuss provides more historical detail--and may start a fight with South Carolina as to whose symbol is the oldest:

[Maryland's] mace is the oldest still in use by a representative body in the new world and the second oldest mace in continuous use anywhere, second only to the mace of the English House of Commons....

The Mace is the symbol of the independence and authority of the House. It is used to bring order to the House and to summon witnesses before it.

The importance of the Mace to legislative proceedings dates back at least to the 1620s when the House of Commons employed it as a symbol of resistance to the arbitrary rule of King Charles the First, sending the Sergeant at Arms out with the Mace to free one of its members imprisoned by the King. Even George Calvert, when he was a minister of the King, felt the power of the House symbolized by the Mace. He had to answer for the King who was attempting to stifle free speech and the right of petition in the House. Calvert did his best to defend his master, but the Houseof Commons was not persuaded, observing on the record that the members could "scarce believe" George Calvert and "thinketh he equivocateth."...

[I]n 1695...the Lower House of the General Assembly would begin to firmly establish itself as an independent voice in the government of Maryland. The road was not an easy one. The Governor could be most persuasive. Indeed on opening day, March 10, 1698 he gave the Speaker a Gown to wear and presented the House with its first mace, the wooden staff of which, I believe, maybe the very one before you today.

Almost immediately the House began to take itself seriously. It appointed a Sergeant at Arms to whom the Mace was entrusted and whose duties included not only enforcing order in the House and summoning witnesses before it, but also entailed keeping the Town Gate, the town prison, and raising the flag over the State House. The job proved too much for the first incumbent, Daniel Cannon, who soon died, perhaps from overwork. The real unsung hero, however, probably was his widow Anne. Someone else was given the job of keeper of the Mace, but Anne Cannon continued to tend the town gate and raise the flag over the State House, billing the Lower House for her services. The record does not show whether or not she was ever paid.

The first use of the Mace in the House was in defiance of the Governor and Council. The Sergeant at Arms was sent out with the Mace to bring back members of the Governor's Council to the bar of the House. There they were to explain how they could have ever issued an order reducing the income of lawyers. Their response is not clear, but the issue seems to have been resolved in Committee....

More than any other symbol [the mace] stands for the orderly, deliberative process of representative government of the people, by the people and for the people. May what it stands for not perish from this earth.

Amen.

Googling "legislative mace" produces far more hits on Canadian provincial parliaments than it does U.S. legislatures, a reflection of the stronger and more prolonged ties of that country's legislative bodies to the British House of Commons--indisputably the father of the mace as a symbol of authority.