When a French politician remarked that a monument should be raised in honour of American independence at a dinner party in 1865 he probably didn't imagine that the result would become an international icon of freedom. ... Édouard René de Laboulaye was an ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War and was thrilled when they triumphed over the Confederacy in 1865 marking an end to slavery. During a conversation at his home in Versailles Laboulaye was heard to say: “If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort – a common work of both our nations”.