On Memorial Day let us wander among
the interred veterans of all the wars Of The Republic.
And then, let us remember Abraham
Lincoln’s peroration of his magnificent Second Inaugural Address:
“With malice toward none; with
charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds;
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his
orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace,
among ourselves, and with all nations.”
After Lincoln's murder, the
spirit of his remarks took hold in curious ways. On May 1, 1865, freed black
slaves gathered to honor the Union prisoners who'd been buried in unmarked
graves at the Charleston Race Course in South Carolina. Elsewhere, in the
South, what was first known as Decoration Day became essential to the Lost
Cause mythology that became so destructive to the descendants of those freedmen
who'd honored the Union dead in Charleston.
Supporting The Troops always has been a more complicated business than
applauding at the ballpark.
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