Deed of presentation., 4th of July, 1884

Deed of presentation.

In the presence of M. Jules Ferry, minister of foreign affairs of France, and president of the council of ministers.

Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, in the name of the committee of the Franco-American Union, and of the national manifestation of which that committee has been the organ, has presented the colossal statue of “Liberty Enlightening the World,” the work of the sculptor Bartholdi, to his excellency Mr. Morton, United States Minister at Paris, praying him to be the interpreter of the national sentiment of which this work is the expression.

Mr. Morton, in the name of his compatriots, thanks the Franco-American Union for this testimony of sympathy from the French people; he declares that in virtue of the powers conferred upon him by the President of the United States, and the committee of the work in America, represented by its honorable president, Mr. William M. Evarts, he accepts the statue, and that it shall be erected in conformity with the vote of Congress of the 22d of February, 1877, in the harbor of New York as a souvenir of the unalterable friendship of two nations.

In faith of which there have signed—