In 1855, American sculptor Thomas Crawford was commissioned to design a statue for the still-unfinished Capitol dome in Washington, DC. He chose to depict “Freedom” as a female figure adorned with a liberty cap, a symbol associated with freed enslaved persons in ancient Rome and the French Revolution.

However, Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War and a significant enslaver, objected to the liberty cap because of its implications regarding enslaved freedom and its historical symbolism. He insisted on replacing the cap with a military helmet. Crawford passed away in Italy in 1857, and the Statue of Freedom was completed under the supervision of Philip Reed, an enslaved craftsman, and installed in 1863 atop the Capitol.

By then, the US was deep into the Civil War, and Davis had become the president of the Confederacy. The authors present this episode to underscore how the national debate over enslavement, and in turn freedom, influenced even artistic and architectural decisions during this period.

Fruits of Manifest Destiny

In the 1840s, the US witnessed significant territorial expansion, largely influenced by the concept of “manifest destiny,” the belief that the nation was destined to expand across the continent.