Memorial Day 2021: Dedicated to those who defended the Capitol and Democracy on Jan. 6, 2021

January 6, 2021, insurrectionists, ignoring the Constitution, tried to take over the United States. 

OPINON

On the first Memorial Day on June 1, 1865, U.S. Senator Charles Sumner referred to the most famous speech ever given by President Abraham Lincoln. In his eulogy on the slain president, he called the Gettysburg Address a "monumental act." He said Lincoln was mistaken that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Rather, the Bostonian remarked, "The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech."

Lincoln's most famous speech, was also his shortest. He gave it in the field where the Battle of Gettysburg in 2863 was fought. There were some 23,000 casualties, including over 7,000 soldiers fatalities on both sides in that battle, a turning point in the Civil War.

Present day, 2021: The Republican senators blocked the creation of a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Insurrection when thousands of conservative extremists stormed the Capitol in order to stop Congress' ratification of President Joe Biden's Presidential victory.

The Capitol police lost two of its members and hundreds more suffered injuries as a result of that attempted coup. Fortunately, none of the insurrectionists, traitors to the Constitution, the U.S. and to Democracy found any of the lawmakers as they wandered through the Capitol hallways.

As today's Republicans try to cover the truth about the 1/6 Insurrection by choosing to ignore that dreadful day and the very real threat it presented to our country, the words of Lincoln gain more significance on this day.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. 

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

EDITOR'S NOTE: A word of caution, this post is opinion laced with news. Readers are encouraged to access multiple news sources to form their own opinions.