The year that is drawing toward 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 the heart which is habitually
insensible to the everwatchful 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 provoke their aggressions,
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 diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful
industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or
the ship; the ax 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
battlefield, 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 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.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the
United Stated States to be affixed.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN’S THANKSGIVING DAY PROCLAMATION, OCTOBER 3, 1863.
Normally I would post Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, but with all
the turmoil economic and otherwise, war, and rumor of wars, I felt Lincoln’s
Proclamation is more appropriate.
So with that Happy Thanksgiving. Just because one is single and away from
home is no excuse not to celebrate.
