Audemus jura nostra defendere
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Audemus jura nostra defendere (Latin "We Dare Defend Our Rights" or "We Dare Maintain Our Rights") is a state motto of Alabama, depicted on a yellow ribbon below the coat of arms and completed in 1923.
Its original source is in lines of "An Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus" (published 1781), known also by its first line, "What constitutes a State?") by the eighteenth-century liberal English philologist Sir William Jones, which included the lines
- Men, who their duties know,
- But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain,
- Prevent the long-aim'd blow,
- And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain: [...]
The words were adjusted by the director of the State Archives, Marie Bankhead Owen, and translated into Latin by Dr. W. B. Saffold, of the University of Alabama.
