Isn’t it a great thing that the United States of America has dedicated an entire day to dwelling in gratitude? President Abraham Lincoln, the American President who established the Thanksgiving tradition as a day of national permanence, could have opted for a more cynical view as he led a divided country in the midst of a vast civil war, but his heart rested and found comfort in his faith in God. Lincoln insisted gratitude was an essential piece of reestablishing peace and working toward unity as a country. This lesson is powerfully relevant today.
It is difficult to imagine the weight President Lincoln must have felt as he penned his Thanksgiving proclamation in 1963. At the time of Lincoln wrote his famous speech, the Civil War was deeply wounding his beloved homeland, killing hundreds of thousands of America’s youth. Lincoln’s own son, Willie, had passed away from an unknown illness the year before. President Lincoln could have succumbed to grief and resorted to blame and bitterness. Instead, he chose faith and acknowledged the many places where he saw God’s goodness at play. He set an example of fortitude, faith, and steadiness in the face of suffering. This can make us all the more grateful for his leadership and model of humility and wisdom in leadership during a key moment for our beautiful country.
Lincoln was an honest man of complex faith. It is known that he struggled with regular Church attendance but he nonetheless rendered gratitude to God and invited others to do so. What if Lincoln had not done this? What would American culture lack without this sacred pause to give thanks? What many blessings our ancestors would have missed and opportunities for peaceful family interactions we would be deprived of without our national Thanksgiving feasts! Still, far beyond turkey traditions and a respite from days of work, this must primarily remain a day for us to render “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens”, that we may poise ourselves properly before the goodness of God.
Washington DC, October 3, 1863
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 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 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 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.
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.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln