Depicts the seal of the United Mexican States.

The Seal of the United Mexican States is a modified version of the national coat of arms, with the addition of the full official name of the country Estados Unidos Mexicanos, in a semi-circular accommodation in the upper part of the seal. Current and past Mexican peso coinage have had the seal engraved on the obverse of all denominations.

The coat of arms depicts a Mexican golden eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus devouring a rattlesnake. To the people of Tenochtitlan this would have strong religious connotations, but to the Europeans, it would come to symbolize the triumph of good over evil (with the snake sometimes representative of the serpent in the Garden of Eden).

The contributions of José María Cos (?-1819) to political thought and journalism in Mexico during the War of Independence were crucial. In the political sphere, he brought a solid discourse to the insurgency that was built on liberal theory, particularly in his collaborations with the Zitácuaro Junta. As a journalist, he founded two insurgent daily newspapers: El Ilustrador Nacional and El Ilustrador Americano, to which Andrés Quintana Roo contributed. Cos' political and intellectual talents were recognized by both the insurgent and royalist sides. The royalists even recriminated Viceroy Venegas on many occasions for having driven Cos to collaborate with the independence movement.