Édouard René de Laboulaye

ca. 1865

“It will be the American Liberty, who does not hold an incendiary torch, but a beacon which enlightens.” —Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye, 1876

It was French political thinker and staunch abolitionist Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye who first conceived the idea for a statue to honor liberty, affirm the historical French-American alliance, and celebrate the centennial of US independence. In 1871, after the end of the US Civil War, Laboulaye expressed his vision for this statue as a tribute to the shared French-American ideal of liberty and the realization of the American democratic ideal marked by the end of slavery in the United States. It would also be a bold call for the French people to return to democracy after decades of repressive monarchs and emperors.

Statue of Liberty National Monument, STLI 7.7#2