Re: Thanksgiving Origins

>
> A couple of years back Charlie Morrison sent this out to the list. As we
> start approaching Thanksgiving, I thought it might be useful in
> understanding how the celebration from Pilgrim times became an official
> federal holiday in the United States. Abraham Lincoln established the
> holiday by Presidential Proclaimation while the nation was in grim civil
war
> with losses mounting on both sides. Abraham Lincoln's words follow:
>
> >>Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation
>>
> > (someone else's writing deleted)
>>
> >>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.

Unfortunately, the only words in the posting that are Lincoln's are those
in the last sentence. Here is the actual text of Lincoln's proclamation:

By the President of the United States of America

A PROCLAMATION

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 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
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 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 benificent 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, 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

from "Abraham Lincoln: Great Speeches (unabridged)", Dover Thrift Editions,

ISBN0-486-26872-1
-------------------------------------------------------------

Lincoln's message is of reconciliation and thanks, not chastisement.

Doing my small part to debunk the Internet, I am

Paul Kasley
ASM, Troop 17, Elmhurst, IL
kasley@fnal.gov

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