Edge-Incused Inscriptions

The edge-incused inscriptions found on the eight 2007 and 2008 Presidential $1 Coins (George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren etc.) include the year of minting or issuance (2007, 2008 etc.), E PLURIBUS UNUM, IN GOD WE TRUST and the mint mark (P, D or S).

Beginning in 2009 with the William Henry Harrison Presidential $1 Coin, the inscription IN GOD WE TRUST was moved to the coin's obverse (heads side), with the year of minting or issuance, E PLURIBUS UNUM and the mint mark remaining as edge lettering.

2007 Presidential $1 Coin Reverse
Lady Liberty (Statue of Liberty) 1886

On October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland accepted the Statue of Liberty on behalf of the United States and said, in part, "We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected."

She is the work of sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, who enlisted the assistance of engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, designer of the Eiffel Tower, to help him solve some of the structural challenges presented by creating a statue of such magnitude.

The Statue of Liberty was completed in 1884 and shipped to the United States in June 1885, having been disassembled into 350 individual pieces that were packed in over 200 crates for the transatlantic voyage. In four months' time, she was re-assembled in New York Harbor, standing just over 151 feet from the top of the statue's base to the tip of the torch her right hand holds high above the waters of New York Harbor.

Originally intended as a gift to celebrate the American Centennial in 1876, the Statue of Liberty was given to the United States as a symbol of the friendship forged between the new American government and the government of France during the American Revolutionary War.

The tablet she holds in her left hand carries the inscription "July IV MDCCLXXVI" in reference to the July 4, 1776, signing of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the Nation.

For millions of Americans, the Statue of Liberty was the first sight that their ancestors saw as they arrived in America after having left their homes in search of a better life for themselves and for their families.

Millard Fillmore Presidential $1 Coin

13th President, 1850 - 1853

Millard Fillmore, the 13^th U.S. President, was born in a log cabin on January 7, 1800, in Locke (now Summerhill), N.Y. The second of nine children, he worked on his father's farm as a boy and became an indentured apprentice to a cloth maker as a teenager. After studying with a county judge, he began to practice law in 1823. In 1828 Fillmore entered politics, serving as a New York state assemblyman and later in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he chaired the powerful Committee on Ways and Means. While comptroller of New York, he was elected to serve as President Zachary Taylor's vice president in 1848 as a Whig. Upon Taylor's death in July 1850, Fillmore became President.

While Fillmore was in office, Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, a package of stop-gap measures which effectively postponed the Civil War for a decade. He also ordered Commodore Matthew C. Perry to lead a naval expedition in 1852 to convince Japan's shogunate government to open relations with the U.S. This paved the way for the 1854 Treaty of Kanagawa, the first between the two countries, thus ending Japanese isolationism.

After two unsuccessful bids for election to the presidency in his own right, he retired to Buffalo, N.Y. In 1862 former President Fillmore was named the first chancellor of the University of Buffalo, now the State University of New York at Buffalo. He died in Buffalo on March 8, 1874.

Franklin Pierce Presidential $1 Coin

14th President, 1853 - 1857

Franklin Pierce, the 14^th U.S. President, was born on November 23, 1804, in Hillsboro, N.H. He was elected to the New Hampshire legislature, and later served in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. In 1847 he served briefly as a brigadier general in the Mexican-American War. Largely unknown to the public, Pierce was nominated for President in 1852 by the Democratic Party as a compromise candidate. Partly because of his strong support for the Compromise of 1850, which attempted to mitigate the slavery issue and preserve the Union, Pierce was elected President and served from 1853-1857.

While he was President, the U.S. negotiated the Gadsden Purchase with Mexico, which gave the U.S. land in present-day southern Arizona and New Mexico for a southern transcontinental railroad. Congress also passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise, thus reopening the possibility of slavery in the West under the principle of "popular sovereignty." This was the belief that the people who settled a territory could determine whether to permit or prohibit slavery.

Denied re-nomination by his party for President in 1856, he retired from politics at the end of his term. He died on October 8, 1869, in Concord, N.H.

James Buchanan Presidential $1 Coin

15th President, 1857 - 1861

James Buchanan, the 15^th U.S. President, was born on April 23, 1791, near Mercersburg, Pa. The oldest of 11 children, he began a successful law career in 1812. During the War of 1812, he helped defend Baltimore against British attack. A gifted orator, he became a state legislator, and later served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and as U.S. minister to Russia. In 1845, he became President James K. Polk's secretary of state. His later service abroad as U.S. minister to Great Britain helped insulate him from the growing domestic controversy over slavery, which was reaching a crescendo by 1856, helping him secure the Democratic Party's nomination for President. He served one term in office, 1857-1861. He did not seek re-election in 1860.

Two days after Buchanan was inaugurated, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the controversial Dred Scott decision, which effectively legalized slavery in all U.S. territories, which served as another factor to further propel the Nation toward civil war. He was successful in opening and securing ports on the West Coast, which enhanced trade with Asian countries. In December 1860, in the wake of Abraham Lincoln's election as President, 11 southern states declared succession from the union and formed the Confederate States of America. Former President Buchanan died on June 1, 1868, in Lancaster, Pa.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential $1 Coin

16th President, 1861 - 1865

Abraham Lincoln, the 16^th U.S. President, was born February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Ky., into a poor frontier family. A self-taught lawyer, he also served in the Illinois legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1858, while campaigning for a seat in the U.S. Senate, Lincoln engaged incumbent Stephen A. Douglas in a series of debates over slavery. Though he lost the election, Lincoln's eloquence won him national attention, and in 1860, he received the Republican Presidential nomination. Lincoln became President of the United States in 1861 as the Nation descended into the Civil War.

While he was President, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves living in the Confederacy. Although the Confederate States ignored the proclamation, it allowed Union soldiers to free slaves they found in the South and recruit them into their army. By the time the Civil War ended, one out of eight members of the Union Army was black. On November 19, 1863, he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address.

His example of assuming sole authority during a time of war was followed by later Presidents, including Woodrow Wilson in World War I and Franklin Roosevelt in World War II.

While the Civil War and efforts to abolish slavery dominated his presidency, Lincoln also signed into law the Homestead Act, which made it possible for poor people to buy land provided they agreed to settle and work there for at least five years. This law began the settlement of the American West.

On April 14, 1865-only a few weeks into his second administration and just as the Civil War was ending, Lincoln was shot by Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, and died the next morning in Washington, D.C.