New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-05-30
DECORATION DAY,

Chalmette is worthy OF our reverence III
a double sense. There the British were
defeated, and there the soldiers of the
Union army are buried. No place was
more worthy 20 be set apart for the men
who spent their lives in saving the nation
from self-destructon, than the very spot
where the country was made glorious by
victory over a foreign foe. If the United
States is blessing to its people, if the
liberties which we enjoy are worthy ofour
highest love and regard, then certainly the
men who preserved it are entitled to the
highest honors which We can pay to their
memories over the graves that hold their
last remains. It is an admitted fact, we
believe, that the Union is an object oflove
to every American citizen, for though
we have passed through a stormy and
disastrous conflict in maintaining it,
even those who attempted its destruction
admit that they raised their hands against
its integrity with great reluctance. The
act of secession was long deferred, because
even its warmest advocates felt that they
were putting In peril the liberties that had
been consecrated and celebrated by eighty
years Of marvellous prosperity and glory.
But few men were to be found in the
United States who really desired to see the
republic disrupted and shattered into
rival nationahties; and if any compromise
could have been effected the South would
have still held to the Union in 1850 as she
had held to it in other years.
If, then, the American people loved the
Union before the rebellion, not only on
account of the traditions that were con-
nected with its history, but because Of its
benignant and peaceful consistence with
their own happiness and independence,
why should they not revere and regard it
now that all cause of quarrel and ami
mostly has been removed from among its
citizens? The strife that convulsed the
nation has only resulted in purifying its
social economy Of an aggravating evil ;
and if we love the thunder storm, while
frightened at its terrible fury, because of
its healthful influence, which it exerts up
on the atmosphere, why should we not
accept Of the disturbance that convulsed
our political world as a blessing for the
good it left behind it? The blasted tree
and broken house are sorry sights to those
L
they were riven by the devouring light
ming of the storm, but the world must ac-
cept of these calamities and repair them
not by suppressing the healthful storm,
but by a cheerful tender Of sympathy and
assistance to the sufferers.
Having the nation now to love, we
should also venerate the memories Of those
who fell that it might be left to US purified
and reformed of its great evil Those
who died in its defense were our friends,
for they saved US from doing a great
wrong to ourselves They fought the
good fight; they paid the great price ;
they persisted in a sacred cause, and in
their unwritten testaments they left us to
be the heirs of heritage which may en-
duTe for generations to the children Of
those who were in arms against them
We can not pay them in their last resting
place too great respect, for in doing so we
only pay respect to what we hold in Gus
tody from their hands.
As the federal soldier fell in defense Of a
principle, and is to be remembered there
for, SO it is our duty to remember and re-
spect those who fell in defense Of principle
upon the other side. They were brothers
in life, and they must be brothers in
death. Their lives were spent that we
might live unspent They died to solve
the problem that we might have been
struggling to solve to-day. The awful or
deal has been passed, and the graves al
Chalmette and those in Greenwood Gene
terry release us from its agony. We must
cherish them alike. The country must
father both. Itcan not prosper with these
two ghostly repositories at war with each
/ other. The hand that strews its flowers
over the tombs of the departed must not
pass around single grave The soul that