Memorial Day’s name seems a bit ambiguous compared with its more precise object. To memorialize means to preserve the memory of or to commemorate. We do that with all sorts of persons and events. The monuments and statues around Washington, D.C., and across the country memorialize. Funerals do so as well for the dearly departed. Nearly any holiday, sacred or secular, calls on us to reverently recall.

On Memorial Day, though, we do not set aside a time generically for remembering, leaving the who or what to the decision of the observer. Instead, Memorial Day honors those who died while serving in the United States military. It asks us to stop and remember the soldiers who perished serving their fellow human beings and American citizens in the line of duty.

We can find no better model for such memorializing than President Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” That famous man’s famous speech will turn 160 later this year. He gave it to dedicate a cemetery for those who had fallen at the pivotal Civil War battle of Gettysburg. In it, we find the words to express our own remembrance.

First, Lincoln articulated the cause for which these men died. He opened by describing America as a nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The Civil War was waged over whether a country “so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.”

This point mattered greatly. Death is a tragedy in itself. But death’s tragedy can be either intensified or rescued in why or how it happened. Lincoln wanted to reject any notion that these men died either for no reason or for ill reasons. These men died so that their fellow human beings and citizens, through the perpetuation of their political community, might live free and equal lives.

Second, Lincoln defended the rightness of remembering as an act of gratitude. “It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this,” he said. Many make sacrifices for the good of their fellow countrymen. For each and all, we should be thankful. But these men “gave the last full measure of devotion.” They “gave their lives that that nation might live.” Those who give much deserve much. Those who give all deserve the best, the most we can feebly repay.

Third, Lincoln showed humility. He declared that he could not dedicate or hallow that cemetery. Nor would the world long remember his words (though he was quite wrong on that). Instead, it was “ the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here” who consecrated the ground and who would long be remembered. In memorializing, we, too, must have humility, a deep sense of our own unworthiness before those great patriots.

Finally, Lincoln called his hearers to action. The living should “be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.” We, the living, should be so dedicated because the cause is just. But we should also be dedicated out of respect for those men’s sacrifice, that “these dead shall not have died in vain.” The continued struggle for victory itself expresses our thankfulness for what these men already did for the cause.

Lincoln said these great words about a particular war and its particular dead. We must admit that not all of America’s wars have been just or wise. But, regardless, we can and should emulate Lincoln in honoring the others who died in serving their country. For that is what they all did.

And as we honor them, we must link their sacrifice to the good principles, practices, and persons that make us America. We must be thankful and humble at the magnitude of their sacrifice. And we must not let that sacrifice be in vain.

This Memorial Day, let us “take increased devotion” to the American experiment. Let us commit to renewing and perpetuating liberty and equality, full of gratitude for the past efforts of the men and women who fought and died for freedom. Let us “here highly resolve … that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.