Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day
October 3, 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.
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.
A. Lincoln
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