What's Up With the Statute of Liberty?

Contrary to liberal narratives, the Statue of Liberty was never intended as a symbol of open immigration. It was, and remains, a monument to liberty over tyranny—a beacon of freedom, not a rewriting or tenet of American law.

Conceived by French historian Édouard de Laboulaye and designed by sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the statue was a gift from France to celebrate the centennial of American independence in 1876. Its purpose was to honor liberty, democracy, and the abolition of oppression—especially slavery in the aftermath of the Civil War. The broken chains at Lady Liberty’s feet represent freedom from tyranny and bondage, not immigration.

When Congress proved unable to fund the pedestal—citing post-war budget constraints and competing Reconstruction priorities—the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty, led by William M. Evarts and others, organized a nationwide private fundraising effort to complete it.

As for the famous inscription—“Give me your tired, your poor …”—it is not U.S. immigration law, nor was it part of the statue’s original design or message. Those lines come from Emma Lazarus’s 1883 poem “The New Colossus,” written to raise money for the pedestal. The poem’s plaque was not added until 1903, seventeen years after the statue’s dedication, and it was placed inside the pedestal—not outside as a declaration of policy, but as a tribute to Lazarus herself for her fundraising work.

For the left to mistake poetic tribute for law is to misunderstand both art and liberty. The Statue of Liberty’s foundation has always stood for freedom earned, not granted—for sovereignty preserved through allegiance, not geography. And, now you know.

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