GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 11, 1886_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
By a joint resolution of Congress approved March 3, 1877, the President
was authorized and directed to accept the colossal statue of "Liberty
Enlightening the World" when presented by the citizens of the French
Republic, and to designate and set apart for the erection thereof a
suitable site upon either Governors or Bedloes Island, in the harbor of
New York, and upon the completion thereof to cause the statue "to be
inaugurated with such ceremonies as will serve to testify the gratitude
of our people for this expressive and felicitous memorial of the
sympathy of the citizens of our sister Republic."
The President was further thereby "authorized to cause suitable
regulations to be made for its future maintenance as a beacon and for
the permanent care and preservation thereof as a monument of art and the
continued good will of the great nation which aided us in our struggle
for freedom."
Under the authority of this resolution, on the 4th day of July, 1884,
the minister of the United States to the French Republic, by direction
of the President of the United States, accepted the statue and received
a deed of presentation from the Franco-American Union, which is now
preserved in the archives of the Department of State.
I now transmit to Congress a letter to the Secretary of State from
Joseph W.
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