Memorial Day was started by a Union General after the Civil War, is America there again?

A fellow Birmingham, Alabama native, who became a New Age guru, seems to have a large Facebook following. Sometimes I think he makes darn good points, such as explaining how Memorial Day got started:

May 29

Albert

Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died in the performance of their military duties while serving in the United States Armed Forces. The holiday is observed on the last Monday of May. It was first widely observed on May 30, 1868 to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers, by proclamation of Gen. John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of former Union sailors and soldiers. Although I am more a man of peace than war, this Holiday honors those who served our country in times of war.  Om. Tat. Sat. Om.

Sloan Bashinsky

So, Memorial Day is rooted in the Grand Army of the Republic, Abraham Lincoln's Army, having put down the Confederate rebellion triggered by Lincoln being elected the first time? The war many American conservatives today maintain had nothing to do with slavery?

And such as his view of Donald Trump and what has become of the Republican Party:

May 31

Albert 

Nero fiddled while Rome burned and the GOP are fiddling instead of acting to punish the January 6 hoodlums. The GOPs in the Senate and House are determined to hang with former President Trump who may be on his way to court for criminal behavior while his self-serving back-handed followers keep pounding the bully pulpit. Historians are to a person worried that the Democracy we so cherish is in danger of being shredded and torn apart. To me this is all about blacks and browns and their constitutional rights to life. liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And don't get me started on the growing number of states who are determined to limit who and how their constituents can vote. Maybe we need another Abraham Lincoln instead of Civil War 2. Om. Tat. Sat. Om.

Sloan Bashinsky

I think life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness first appeared in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, authored by a slaveholder, Thomas Jefferson:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

That was not intended to apply to (a) women and (b) Negro slaves, and the ensuring U.S. Constitution and its Bill or Rights (Amendments I through X) did not give women and Negro slaves those rights.

Negro slaves were freed by the Civil War, but you and I know, Albert, being Birmingham, Alabama natives, that many people in Alabama today say the Civil War was over states rights, not slavery.

I have worried since Trump ran the first time that a 3rd American Civil War might ensue, if you count the rebellion against the English King as the first Civil War. The right and the left are as divided today as the Colonists and the Loyalists were divided before the American Revolution and the non-slave and the slave states were divided before Lincoln was elected the first time. I think Donald Trump and what the Republican Party has become can take a bow for that division.

I wonder if Joe Biden is prepared to use the U.S. Military to defend America from Donald Trump and what has become the Republican Party? I can imagine Abraham Lincoln, were he president today, would be prepared to do that, and would do it, against the party that once claimed him as its polestar.

Meanwhile, it's my impression that the Republican Party today claim to be tight with Jesus in the Gospels, and I think it might be appropriate for them to experience that Jesus in their midst and hear what he has to say to them, which I can imagine will not make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Then, Jesus has a prayer meeting with Joe Biden and the left, which might not suit them particularly, either?

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com