This Thanksgiving week
I plan to share some stories, a few of my favorites, which have caused me to
pause in life and give thanks. I hope that you enjoy this little series of
stories. While looking through the archives I came across two Thanksgiving
Proclamations given by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Both of them were declared on
October 3rd. Why two? I couldn’t find the answer, but since there is
a movie out now about Lincoln I thought I would share these proclamations on
Thanksgiving Day.
Abraham Lincoln's
Thanksgiving Proclamation
of 1863
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled
with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties,
which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from
which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a
nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is
habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and
severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke
their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been
maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed
everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has
been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields
of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the
shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and
the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded
even more abundantly than heretofore.
Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste
that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the
country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is
permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand
worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High
God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless
remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be
solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by
the whole American People.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of
the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning
in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next,
as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in
the Heavens.
And I recommend to them that while offering up the
ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings,
they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and
disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows,
orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are
unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty
Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be
consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony,
tranquillity and Union.
Abraham Lincoln's
Thanksgiving Proclamation
of 1863
It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their
dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and
transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance
will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in
the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed
whose God is the Lord.
We know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals,
are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly
fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a
punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of
our national reformation as a whole people?
We have been the recipients of the choisest bounties of
heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we
have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious
hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened
us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all
these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel
the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God
that made us.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be
solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice,
by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every
part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are
sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of
November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father Who
dwelleth in the heavens.
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