The Daily Gate City

The Statue of Freedom.

Washington, Dec. 2, '63.

The colossal statue of 'Freedom,' in bronze, by Clark Mills, modelled by Crawford, is to-day set up in the great tholus surmounting the dome of the capitol.

During more than two years of our struggle, while the national cause seemed weak, she has patiently waited and watched below; now that victory crowns our advances, and the conspirators are hedged in and vanquished everywhere, and the bondsmen are being freed, she comes forward the cynosure of thousands of eyes, her face turned rebukingly toward Virginia and the hand outstretched as if in guaranty of National Unity and Personal Freedom.

Perhaps the whole history of that admirable work of art is not generally known. As I see, from my window, the crowd gathered at the Capitol, and as the grand salute in chorus from all the forts around the city reaches my ears, it occurs to me to repeat a couple of incidents for the Tribune.

When the bronze castings were being completed, at the foundry of Mr. Mills near Bladensburg, his foreman, who had superintended the work from the beginning, and who was receiving $8 per day, struck and demanded $10, assuring Mr. M. that the advance must be granted to him, as nobody in America but himself could complete the work. Mr. M. felt that the demand was exorbitant, and appealed in his dilemma to the slaves who were assisting in the moulding. 'I can do that well,' said one of them, an intelligent and ingenious servant, who had been intimately engaged in the various processes. The striker was dismissed and the negro, assisted occasionally by the finer skill of his master, took the striker's place as superintendent, and the work went on. The black master-builder lifted the ponderous uncouth masses, and bolted them together, joint to joint, piece by piece, till they blended into the majestic 'Freedom,' who to-day lifts her head in the blue clouds above Washington, invoking a benediction on the imperiled Republic!

Was there a prophecy in that moment when the slave became the artist, and with rare poetic justice, reconstructed the beautiful symbol of freedom for America?

Another fact: The original model of Crawford was crowned with the old 'Liberty Cap'—loved by our grandfathers for its significance, but fallen into dispute and disuse under the pro-slavery debauchery of the last twenty years. When Mr. Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War under Pierce, saw the model, he said at once, 'This will never do. We Americans have patronized this absurd 'Liberty Cap' too long already. It was the detestable head-gear adopted by the freed slaves of Rome. Let us put it out of our sight!' And with characteristic bad taste, and a fondness for American institutions for which he has not recently been conspicuous, he ordered that the classic helmet be doffed and that the goddess be crowned, after the manner of our North American Indians, with a fantastic headdress of feathers! So the Liberty Cap of Crawford was knocked off, and the barbarous device of Jeff. Davis mounted in its place, consisting of a limp eagle skin, with a row of stiff quills, rampant, running down the back from beak to tail. It is related that when the amended head was finished, and on exhibition on the Rotunda, an Irishman, inspecting it, said to his comrade, 'Murther, Mike, what quare bird is this, wid his tail on the top of his head?' As it stands to-day, though Mr. Mills gave all his talent for its construction, and interpreted carefully and faithfully the orders which he received, the head-dress is an utter nondescript; and our capitol is to wear a sign of barbarism for its very crown, because Jeff. Davis, worshipping slavery, despised the significant and grand old 'Cap of Liberty.'—[Cor. N. Y. Trib.