SEPTEMBER 28, 1863:
The holiday known as “Thanksgiving” had been a
local observance in the several States since colonial times, held on different
days and in different seasons. New Englanders tended to hold their
Thanksgivings in the early autumn, Southerners in the Springtime.
Sarah
Josepha Hale, the 74-year-old magazine editor of Godey's Lady's Book,
writes to President Lincoln, urging him to have a "day of our annual
Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." Mrs. Hale has been
trying for 15 years to have a President declare Thanksgiving a set national
holiday.
She advises President Lincoln, "You
may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing
interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all
the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritative fixation, only,
to become permanently, an American custom and institution."
President Lincoln has been looking for a way to raise the national
consciousness regarding the Union’s recent successes in the Civil War. He wants
to memorialize the summer’s victories, underscoring the fact that they
constitute the turning point of the war. Mrs. Hale’s suggestion of a day of
national reflection accomplishes this goal beautifully. Unlike his
predecessors, and to the dismay of turkeys everywhere, President Lincoln
responds to Mrs. Hale's request immediately.
As soon as he reads her letter, he issues the following Presidential
Proclamation, declaring the last Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving
throughout the land:
By the
President of the United States of America.
A
Proclamation.
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
unequaled 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 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 consiousness 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 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 Unites
States the Eighty-eighth.
By the
President: Abraham Lincoln
William
H. Seward,
Secretary of State
