Memorial Day Speech 1878, President Hayes

As I have pointed out many times, the religious faith of our Founders and our very history is obvious if one reads a little about our legacy. It is infused in speeches and documents from colonial times through the present days. Below is a speech by President Hayes on the occasion of Memorial Day, 1878. In it he borrows Lincoln's words saying that we are one nation under God.

Memorial Day Speech, Rutherford B. Hayes, May 30, 1878

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

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The battle of Gettysburg will probably always be regarded as a battle which did more than any other to determine the result of the great civil war in the United States. The honored dead who fought and perished here will therefore be forever held in special and grateful remembrance. The great martyr of the conflict was Abraham Lincoln. He by his immortal words spoken here as indissolubly linked his name, fame and memory with the battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln gave his life, and the brave men who responded to his call gave their lives for the Union, for liberty, and for a stable, constitutional government. They believed that our institutions were equal to any emergency, and that they ought to be maintained at the cost of property or of life. If our assembling in this place shall fitly honor the men we now wish remembered with gratitude, it will be because beholding these scenes and contemplating the example of the heroes who made Gettysburg illustrious, we shall be able to estimate more wisely the value of our country and of her institutions, and be better prepared for the duties which, under Providence, have devolved upon us. Let us here give heed to the words of Abraham Lincoln. Let us here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that a government of the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth

Learn more at The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center