Statue of Liberty 1889, there were 38 U.S. states), although this was not done. Above that, a balcony was placed on each side, framed by pillars. Bartholdi placed an observation platform near the top of the pedestal, above which the statue itself rises. According to author Louis Auchincloss, the pedestal "craggily evokes the power of an ancient Europe over which rises the dominating figure of the Statue of Liberty". The committee hired former army General Charles Pomeroy Stone to oversee the construction work. Construction on the foundation began in 1883, and the pedestal's cornerstone was laid in 1884. In Hunt's original conception, the
Statue of Freedom the new cast-iron dome, which was authorized in 1855. Walter's drawing showed the outline of a statue representing the Goddess of Liberty; Crawford proposed instead an allegorical figure of "Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace". Crawford was commissioned to design "Freedom" in 1854 and executed the plaster model for the statue in his studio in Rome. Mississippian U.S. Senator and U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (who would later become President of the Confederacy) was in charge of the Capitol construction and its decorations. According to David Hackett Fischer in his book "Liberty and Freedom", Crawford's statue was... Davis sent