Laboulaye
| Édouard René de Laboulaye | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Administrator of the Collège de France | |
|
In office 1876 – 25 May 1883 |
|
| Member of the French Senate for Seine | |
|
In office 1875 – 25 May 1883 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 18 January 1811 Paris, France |
| Died | 25 May 1883 (aged 72) Paris, France |
| Spouse(s) | Augusta Virginia Paradise (1832-1841) Alexandrine Louise Valerie Michelin-Tronsson du Coudray. |
| Children | Paulin de Laboulaye |
Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye (French pronunciation: [edwaːʁ ʁəne ləfɛːvʁ də labulɛ]) (18 January 1811 – 25 May 1883) was a French jurist, poet, author and anti-slavery activist. In 1865 he originated the idea of a monument presented by the French people to the United States that resulted in the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. He got the idea thinking that this would help strengthen their relationship with the United States.
Laboulaye was received at the bar in 1842, and was chosen professor of comparative law at the Collège de France in 1849. Following the Paris Commune of 1870, he was elected to the national assembly, representing the departement of the Seine. As secretary of the committee of thirty on the constitution he was effective in combatting the Monarchists in establishing the Third Republic. In 1875, he was elected a life senator, and in 1876 he was appointed administrator of the Collège de France, resuming his lectures on comparative legislation in 1877. Laboulaye was also chairman of the French Anti-Slavery Society. Laboulaye was president of the Société d'économie politique.
Always a careful observer of the politics of the United States, and an admirer of its constitution, he wrote a three-volume work on the political history of the United States, and published it in Paris during the height of the politically repressed Second Empire. During the American Civil War, he was a zealous advocate of the Union cause and the abolition of slavery, publishing histories of the cultural connections of the two nations. At the war's conclusion in 1865, he became president of the French Emancipation Committee that aided newly freed slaves in the U.S. The same year he had the idea of presenting a statue representing liberty as a gift to the United States, a symbol for ideas suppressed by Napoleon III. The sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, one of Laboulaye's friends, turned the idea into reality.
...
Wikipedia