Independence Declared 1776, The Union Must Be Preserved 1839 framed antique art A Quadricentennial chromolithograph minted for

A Quadricentennial chromolithograph minted for the 400-year jubilee

Bartholdi's gift assembled stone by stone in the long civic afterglow of a country still learning how to commemorate itself

The artist understood that a bombardment is half spectacle

infected summer that followed

Independence Declared 1776, The Union Must Be Preserved 1839 framed antique art A Quadricentennial chromolithograph minted forIndependence Declared 1776, The Union Must Be Preserved 1839 yokes the founding clarion to a Jacksonian era vow, the broadside speaking in two voices across sixty three years one announcing a republic, the other warning what it would cost to keep it whole as the slavery question began its slow boil toward fracture. About the Source Bella Frye sources artifacts from the great American historical archive the Library of Congress, the National Archives,