Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1863

Between 1777 and 1815, US presidents proclaimed national Thanksgiving days for the entire nation to come together and give thanks for the general blessings of the year. The tradition fell out of fashion after 1815; however, many New England communities continued to celebrate an annual day of thanksgiving. By the 1830s, New Englanders looked back at the Pilgrims’ harvest feast and called it the First Thanksgiving because it bore a striking resemblance to their modern version of the holiday, which featured morning church services, family reunions, sports, and turkey with all the trimmings. As they moved westward during the 19th century they brought their traditions with them, connecting the 1621 event to the emerging national holiday. Inspired by this history, in 1837 Sarah Josepha Hale began a campaign to reinstate a national day of thanksgiving and petitioned several US presidents to make it an annual event. Abraham Lincoln delivered the first familiar Thanksgiving proclamation declaring the last Thursday in November a national holiday. The date for Thanksgiving Day was legally set as the 4th Thursday of November in the 1930s.

Transcription

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 even soften 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 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, tranquility, and union.

• What does Lincoln say about why he thinks the nation needs a national day of thanksgiving? Do you agree? What makes you say that?
  
• Compare Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation to those issued by George Washington (1789), and Joseph R. Biden (2022). Who is the intended audience for these proclamations? How does each president use the ideas of giving thanks and the Thanksgiving story to connect with their audience?
  
• How does each president use their Thanksgiving Proclamation to address the key issues of their day?
  

• Read George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789
• Read Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 2022