Two hundred years ago this month, the American nation, then nearing its 50th birthday, saw the conclusion of an extraordinary moment in its young life: the yearlong national tour of Gen. Lafayette, the great French hero of the American Revolution. The tour, which began on Aug. 24, 1824, and ended with Lafayette’s departure for France on Sept. 9, 1825, became a unifying event at a time of growing political tensions and national polarization, mainly over slavery and tariffs. That makes it all the more relevant in our own time.

His triumphant visit included the first-ever Broadway parade in Manhattan, where some 80,000 people — two-thirds of the city’s population — welcomed him.

In Brooklyn, he lifted up on his shoulders a 6-year-old boy who would become the great American poet Walt Whitman

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