I think it's appropriate that I call this Holiday by its original name. It's time we remember what this nation went through to get where it is Today.
The Day had its origins on May 1, 1865, right after the end of the American Civil War. It was originally celebrated by freedmen, as the freed slaves were called. Appropriately enough for the holiday's Civil War roots, the day was founded in Charleston, South Carolina.
Decoration Day began three years later, at the order of Union General John A. Logan. The date for the celebration way May 30, 1868. A date that lasted for a hundred years, until Congress, in its usual boneheadedness, created the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, also known as the three day weekend law. This law didn't take effect until 1971. By the time I was in High School the damage had been done. Memorial Day was seen as nothing more than the beginning of the Summer Season. As I went to High School on Cape Cod, that was still a big deal, but nothing like what it really meant. A lot of people died so that we could open the beaches. (It really sounds crass when you put it that way, doesn't it).
Supposedly Memorial Day is supposed to honor "The Fallen" and Veterans Day "The Living", yet still, it missed the mark.
More that 3 million men fought in the war, over 620,000 died. If the nation had stayed divided, Slavery would have become an institution in the South to this day. Without a war, I still believe technology would have made slavery obsolete within 10-15 years (1870-75). But with the war, if the South had "won" (i.e. put up enough of a resistance to force the European Powers to intervene, created an arbitrated peace), the result would have been seen as a vindication of the Peculiar Institution, and it would have survived.
Enjoy the cookout, enjoy the Summer, but never forget the cost. The Civil War ensured that our nation would be around today, with freedom and liberty for all. Because of the slavery part of the story, the Civil War is the true "Forgotten War". Nobody wants to talk about it. In fact, there are people out there trying to rewrite the results at best, and purge the very memory of the war from our existence at worst. That is wrong. You don't learn from history if you try to pretend it didn't happen. God Bless You all, and God Bless America.
