A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism

by Adam Gopnik

The greatest monument of modern liberalism began precisely in that hour, too, as a gift from nascent French republicanism to triumphant American republicanism. We have allowed the Statue of Liberty to be subsumed into the narrative of American immigration, and understandably so given that for many millions of American ancestors this French thing was the first American thing they saw. But it was first imagined, in that pivot year of 1865, as a tribute to the shining light of the republican ideal at a time when it still seemed impossible in France. It was an imaginary dream figure celebrating the vindication of liberty in America with an eye to its eventual vindication in France: you’ve married her; we will, too, some day. She is a figure of that crucial long decade, in which modern liberalism is mostly forged.