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Is 'Battle Born' Nevada's official state motto?

By Austin Tannenbaum
NO

Nevada’s official state motto is “All for our country,” which can be seen on Nevada’s state seal. Less than two years after Nevada was officially made a state, the Nevada Legislature replaced the former territory’s motto “Volens et Potens,” Latin for “Willing and Able,” with the above phrase.

There is no documentation for why “All for our country” was chosen, but it may have to do with pro-Union sentiment. The more pointed motto “The Union Must and Shall Be Preserved” was considered at Nevada’s first constitutional convention in 1863.

The phrase “Battle Born,” which appears on the state flag and is one of Nevada’s nicknames, is commonly mistaken as Nevada’s motto. It was coined in 1864 at Nevada’s second constitutional convention to mark the state’s intrepid entrance into the Civil War the same year it was admitted into the union.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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