Abraham
Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States and steered this country
through the Civil War. His face graces Mount Rushmore along with Washington,
Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt. The Lincoln Memorial was built in his
memory.
150
years ago Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring the last Thursday in November
a day of Thanksgiving. Text provided here
and below the break.
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
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