Abraham Lincoln: Thanksgiving Then and Now

During a time, when America was in turmoil, when citizens doubted the abilities of their President, and when hope for a brighter future was fading, our President, Abraham Lincoln, issued a proclamation and began the American tradition of the official holiday known as 'Thanksgiving.'

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 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 can not 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 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 not withstanding 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, 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 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth."

(proclaimed, decreed and signed by ABRAHAM LINCOLN)

Lincoln's original 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation came - spiritually speaking - at a pivotal point in his life. During the first week of July of that year, the Battle of Gettysburg occurred, resulting in the loss of some 60,000 American lives. Four months later in November, Lincoln delivered his famous "Gettsysburg Address."

It was while Lincoln was walking among the thousands of graves there at Gettysburg that he committed to life as a man of faith. As he explained to a friend:

"When I left Springfield [to assume the Presidency] I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ."

In the words of Abraham Lincoln
October 3, 1863

As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving each year, I hope that everyone will retain the original gratefulness to their highest beliefs - to Mother Earth and her children and to that holy force of our Soul by any name God/Jehova/Buddha/the Tao/Brahma/Mohammed/Nature/ whomever/whatever you hold or envision on your own soul path that is holy and sacred and of the highest intent for good.

May the beautiful light of your truest and highest nature shine brightly and may it fill up your heart and be fully displayed through your spirit of highest good will to all.

And that instead of complaining, and seeking to destroy and to bring down, that instead, we work together to raise up, bring in the light of unity and understanding, and work together for the common good of our country, our world and our original essence of the Mother Earth, Father Sun, Sea and Sky. Happy Thanksgiving from our home and family to all of yours!

Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands sharing an imaginative, magical, and healing journey from Alaska to Oregon and back again. Creating, designing, sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, from my heart and with my hands