Standing tall in New York Harbor, as she did for the millions of immigrants who entered the United States of America at nearby Ellis Island, Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty is a symbol of freedom and the opportunity that exists in America to start life over. In the beginning, though, she was a symbol of friendship between two nations. For purely selfish reasons, France had aided the United States in their revolution to break free from colonial ties to Great Britain. France was also one of the first allies of the new United States of America when that nation was formed in 1776. During the French Revolution, American patriots such as Thomas Paine aided the French forces fighting for liberty, freedom, and democracy, and America as a whole supported the First Republic of France. Two republics later, following the unexpected loss of the Alsace and Lorraine regions to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, France turned to the United States, which had just come out of a terrible war of its own, for guidance in re-establishing a democratic government. With the Third Republic firmly established by 1875, France decided to present a gift to the United States, not only as a symbol of the long-standing FrancoAmerican friendship, but also as a commemoration ofAmerica's centennial in 1876. The Franco-American Union saw to it that Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty proposal would be that gift.