19 November 2013
GETTYSBURG, PA. One
hundred and fifty years ago, on Cemetery Hill, a ceremony was held to dedicate
a memorial and a graveyard for the Union soldiers who died in the Battle of
Gettysburg. Edward Everett was the
featured speaker. He spoke for two
hours.
President Abraham Lincoln was invited to express a few
appropriate remarks on the dedication.
He delivered the Gettysburg Address.
The speech was over in less than three minutes. So short was the speech that the photographer
of the event barely had time to set up his camera and snap the shutter as
Lincoln sat down.
On the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of that
speech, a succession of Edward Everetts addressed the few thousand people who
attended, followed by a recitation of the speech by an actor dressed up as
Honest Abe. President Obama did not
attend.
In the course of the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln raised the
matter of the dead at Gettysburg having died in vain. He exhorted his audience to highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain.
He was asking his audience to continue to prosecute the war to final
victory in order that those who died on behalf of the Union at Gettysburg and
elsewhere shall have had their goal achieved.
Does that mean that soldiers who die in a losing cause die
in vain?
The Southern memorials at Gettysburg seem to support the
view that they do. The cause of the
South during the Civil War was the break up of the American Union and the
preservation of the institution of slavery.
Southern memorials refer to the devotion to duty, the sacrifices, and
the courage in the face of long odds and much suffering of the Southern
soldiers. None of the memorials speak of
the Lost Cause, for today everyone realizes the Lost Cause was evil in both its
respects.
The people of Gettysburg look upon their military park as a
place where the United States comes together.
There must be more Confederate flags flown at Gettysburg than anywhere in
the old South. Confederate flags are
placed upon the most touching of the Southern memorials: the place where CS
General Lewis Armistead fell having crossed the wall near the copse of trees
and the places of furthest advance of the 26th North Carolina and
the 11th Mississippi, who reached the stone wall between the Emmetsburg Pike and the
Taneytown Road at the crisis of Pickett’s Charge. Having won, Northerners can forgive. They can show respect. It would be hurtful if they did the opposite.
If it is granted that soldiers can die in vain, then it is
incumbent that the cause soldiers do die for ought to be good. If they die in a losing cause, they die in
the satisfaction that their cause was good.
Politicians who whip up public sentiment in favor of war need to be
certain that the cause which they ask others to fight and die for be a good
one. Abe Lincoln was certain, and he was
right. Just as certain was Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy;
and he was wrong.
Like the United States, Canada has sent soldiers to fight
and die in places like Korea and Afghanistan.
These soldiers did not fight for the cause of Korea or Afghanistan. They fought for the cause of Canada. Their government asked them to go overseas
and fight for reasons of national policy too complex to articulate. The evils of Communism and Talibanism require
a rational argument to justify fighting.
Fighting to protect home, family, friends, and a way of life is simpler
and goes to the heart of the matter.
Their motivation is simply the Cause of Canada. In the heat of battle, the cause is
simplified even further: the guys next to you.
The war in Vietnam was, at the time, hated; and that hatred
was turned partly upon the soldiers who returned from that war. They were somehow tainted by the evil which
that war came to represent. These
soldiers went to Vietnam mostly because they were drafted; their government
told them they had a job to do in the cause of the interests of the United
States. Several decades and the
experience of a couple of wars later, passions concerning the treatment of
veterans changed. Now we distinguish
between the war that politicians send soldiers on, and the soldiers who
answered that call to duty. We notice
first and foremost their patriotism.
The passions aroused by war are among the most powerful felt
in a society. We send soldiers to fight
and perhaps die for some cause or other; and the most powerful and most direct political
cause is the cause of Country. The
country must be certain that its cause is good, for then the honoured dead, win
or lose, shall not have died in vain.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment