"In 1871, abolitionist Frederick Douglass feared Americans were forgetting the Civil War's impetus — slavery — when he gave a Decoration Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery.

"We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation's destroyers," Douglass said."

https://www.phillytrib.com/news/from-the-civil-war-to-todays-mattress-sales-memorial-day-is-full-of-contradiction/article_ae69b0b9-ae41-5350-b1f8-545309c781b0.html