Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations, that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic.

The quote is a warning against letting material greed (“avarice”) or simple indifference (“neglect”) erase the public signs of sacrifice that underwrite republican freedom. Logan frames memorials—graves, monuments, ceremonies—not as mere sentiment, but as civic evidence: if they decay, they “testify” that the nation has forgotten what it cost to secure a “free and undivided Republic.” The phrase links remembrance to national unity after the Civil War, implying that the Union’s survival and the liberties it protects depend on an active culture of historical memory. In this view, commemoration is a form of moral stewardship owed both to the dead and to posterity.