Democracy is our Legacy
DEMOCRACY IS OUR LEGACY
In an earlier post, AMERICA THEN / AMERICA NOW / AMERICA NEXT, I outlined major fissures that have divided the nation since the Civil War era. The intent was to lay out the two competing visions of America before us and emphasize that we in a decisive moment in our history. If America is to exist as a democracy, then this is one of the critical times that participatory citizenship is required of all. But there is another dimension to this moment. While we have a choice to make, it is equally important to remember that we have this choice because those who have gone before us have given us that option. And so, as we make our choice, we also need to remember the debt to those who sacrificed on our behalf.
In an article published on Memorial Day in the New York Times, historian and former president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust, put this decision in perspective: “Opinion | We Are Not Being Asked to Run Into Cannon Fire. We Just Need to Speak Up.”
Dr. Faust, the historian, is the author of the book The Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. She frames our obligations in terms of the sacrifices made by those who fought and died in the Civil War in defense of freedom. I repost part of her article here as a reaffirmation of our obligation.
Frederick Douglass thought Decoration Day — the original name for Memorial Day — was the nation’s most significant holiday. On May 30, 1871, the day’s fourth annual observance, he honored the unknown Union dead at Arlington National Cemetery, addressing President Grant, members of his cabinet and a crowd of dignitaries surrounded by graves adorned with spring flowers.
[Amid the celebration] Douglass worried that the lives and purposes of the approximately 400,000 Northern soldiers who died in the war and even the meaning of the war itself might be forgotten.
[She writes about her work]: I have read dozens of these men’s letters and diaries, windows into why they fought, into what and whom they loved and what they hoped for at the end of a war they knew they might not survive. Together they did save the Union, the nation that has given me and so many others opportunities that the war-born imperative of ever-expanding freedom has offered. These men made our lives possible. They were impelled to risk all by a sense of obligation to the future. We possess a reciprocal obligation to the past. We must not squander what they bequeathed to us.
This debt and this duty should be at the forefront of our minds this Memorial Day. We must honor these men, their bravery, their sacrifice, and especially their purposes. We are being asked not to charge into a hail of Minié balls and artillery fire but only to speak up and to stand up in the face of foundational threats to the principles for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.
[In my piece I echo the conclusion that she reaches in hers]: “The unfinished work of freedom seems to be in full-throttle reverse.”
Let us not dishonor the ultimate sacrifice of those who gave us the opportunity to again in our time affirm democracy.
Dr. Faust’s full article can be accessed at: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/opinion/memorial-day-democracy-crisis.html