If the last few generations of Americans understood the origin and meaning of Memorial Day, we might have avoided the division and corruption that now threaten the United States as never before. Memorial Day was founded on Biblical ideals of forgiveness and reconciliation shortly after America's most divisive and bloody conflict, the Civil War, which extended from 1861 to 1865. That conflict took the lives of at least 620,000 men, more casualties than all of America's other wars combined.
The United States was so divided at the time of the Civil War that many thought reconciliation impossible. And yet, that reconciliation began with humble and virtuous actions from the vanquished South, not the victorious North.
Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day, and was established to honor the dead and buried from the Civil War. On April 25, 1866, a former chaplain in the Confederate Army accompanied a group of women from Columbus, Mississippi, to Friendship Cemetery—the burial ground for about 1,600 men who died in the Battle of Shiloh—for the purpose of honoring the dead with decorations of flowers. At that time, Columbus, like the rest of the South, was occupied by Union Army forces, and some townspeople were fearful of creating new animosity should the decorations favor Confederate over Union graves.
The prayerful Columbus women had no such intention. Their equal decoration of the graves of both sides became a catalyst for a national reconciliation movement. The New York Herald editorialized: "The women of Columbus, Mississippi, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings to the memory of the dead. They have strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederates and of the [Union] soldiers."
In spite of the war's staggering death toll, Abraham Lincoln expressed no blame or bitterness toward the Confederacy. Rather, in his Second Inaugural Address he held both sides—the North and the South—accountable for this most costly war. Memorial Day might be our most important holiday today because it reminds us that the country paid more in deaths to reunite the nation and correct the offense of slavery than for all the other causes for which it fought in its history.
While Memorial Day, which became the holiday name of Decoration Day, came to be known as a day of commemoration to honor those lost while fighting in the Civil War, its observance was inconsistent for many years. And when the United States became embroiled in World War I and World War II, the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in subsequent wars.
Memorial Day finally became a national federal holiday in 1968 when Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, enacted to create a three-day holiday weekend for federal employees. The act established the date of annual celebration for Memorial Day as the last Monday in May.
Americans were unique in having sacrificed their lives and treasure to found a country on the principle that all people have natural rights that come from God rather than from rulers or government. The Declaration of Independence affirmed the equality and unalienable rights of all people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The fact that it took nearly 200 years for that entire vision to be fully realized does not diminish the accomplishment of the Founding based on those ideals. Thus, we should remember that when Americans sacrificed their lives in military service, it was not just to defend the United States—it was also to uphold the natural rights and moral values associated with the nation's Founding, which provide inspiration for others worldwide.
Various times and places in human history saw states of great cultural achievement, virtue, and efflorescence, such as in Periclean Athens, in the Florence of the Medicis, and in the England of Elizabeth and Shakespeare. But none were founded the way America was—by a collection of the nation's most learned statesmen, well-versed in classics of law, political philosophy, and Biblical understanding, who prayerfully approached drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and then the U.S. Constitution in 1787. The Constitution provided a charter for an unprecedented arrangement of governmental institutions designed to mitigate corruption and abuses of power while protecting the citizens' unalienable God-given rights. The Bill of Rights, an integral part of the Constitution, enabled people living in America to rise closer to the divine image in which all were created than they would have under any government previously conceived.
When the Puritans departed England in 1630 for the New World, under the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company and with sponsorship from the British Crown, they had no idea what an independent American government would look like a century and half later. Their leader and future governor, John Winthrop, had a vision, taken from Scripture, that they would be an example for the rest of the world in rightful living. Upon leaving England and again before arriving in Massachusetts aboard the ship Arbella—a name of Latin origin meaning "yielding to prayer"—Winthrop declared to his people their purpose quite clearly: "We shall be as a 'city upon a hill.' The eyes of all people are upon us."
The governing guidelines for that "city" would one day be the U.S. Constitution. Writing about the destiny of the new nation, Thomas Jefferson stated, "We feel that we are acting under obligations not confined to the limits of our own society. It is impossible not to be sensible that we are acting for all mankind." In only two centuries since that time, many other nations have come to accept the value of having a constitution, regardless of differences in culture and history. Many sought to learn from the United States because of the captivating ideals at the center of the world's longest surviving constitution.
Memorial Day means more than remembering and honoring those who died in military service to the country. It means connecting with a heritage that began with a courageous and faithful group of Founders who risked everything for the birth of freedom and the establishment of America as a "city on a hill." And it's particularly appropriate in these trying times to remember the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation that renewed America after the divisive period of the Civil War when the nation suffered its greatest wartime destruction and loss of life.
Memorial Day, rightly understood, offers inspiration and depth to rediscover and restore the ideals that made America great.
Scott Powell is senior fellow at Discovery Institute and a member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. His recent book, Rediscovering America, was #1 new release in history for eight straight weeks at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637581599). Reach him at scottp@discovery.org
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
