As I reflect on the past Thanksgivings I've shared with my love ones, I also picture a family in the 1800s, huddled around a table perhaps not nearly as well-stocked as those we're used to. This led me to research the origin of the holiday, and I stumbled upon President Abraham Lincoln's proclamation that established this special Thursday in history. Enjoy, as you celebrate today, giving thanks for all your blessings, and remembering those less fortunate and offering a prayer for them.
A Proclamation.
The Year that is
drawing to a 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 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 unequaled magnitude and severity, which has
sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke the
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 theater of military conflict; while
that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and
navies of the Union.
Needful diversion of wealth and strength
from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not
arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has 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 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 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 ascription's justly due to Him for such
singular deliverance's 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, tranquility, and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the
Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
Borrowed from Abraham Lindoln Online.
Wishing you a bounty of love,
Ginger
2 comments:
Thanks, Ginger. You, too.
Ginger, thanks for sharing this address. I've never read it before. How touching that Lincoln asked Americans to give thanks even in the midst of war. And how sad that we've had to do so once again.
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