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May 28, 2021
Dear Friend,
General John A. Logan, in May of 1868, issued a general order that the 30th day of May should be designated "for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country."
"We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic," it reads.
At every moment of sacrifice and courage, from the harbor in Boston to the battlefields of today, the men and women who gave their lives did so for the sake of American liberty and the cause of freedom. On Memorial Day, we honor the ones who are gone, the ones who gave all.
"Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan."
Gen. Logan's order speaks of assisting those left to us by the fallen, the "widow and orphan." But left also to our charge is that nation which they died to defend and preserve. Left also to our care is the institution of freedom and the democratic republic which our Founders did ordain and establish. We should renew our pledge there, too.
Most of us have had someone in our life who served. You may be a veteran, your spouse or child, a friend or family member. And each of us holds dear the memory of someone lost in that service. We honor them in many ways, and one of the ways we can continue to honor them is by continuing our own service. By fighting for the preservation of our sacred franchise, our precious voice that is the vote.
"If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us," said Gen. Logan on that consequential day in 1868.
Let your hands, and ours, keep that solemn trust. Today, and for as long as the light remains to us.
May God bless America on this Memorial Day, May 31, 2021.
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