Nathaniel Hawthorne praised the American Revolution as a grand movement in which the people united in establishing the freedom and independence of America, and later reflections linked that struggle to an evolving legacy of liberty and respect for the individual. For the Centennial Celebration in 1875, a new bridge crossed the river to a new monument, The Minute Man, by Daniel Chester French. The Minute Man remains a powerful symbol of the continuing struggle for liberty and of a progress toward true respect for the individual, echoing Henry David Thoreau’s view that the movement from absolute to limited monarchy to democracy is a progress toward such respect, and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s belief that every revolution begins as a thought in one man’s mind.
