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Thanksgiving Proclamation

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of Thanksgiving. He designated the day for Americans to give thanks for the blessings of fruitful fields, healthful skies, and peace with other nations despite civil war. Lincoln acknowledged that these blessings came from God's providence rather than any human efforts and invited Americans to offer gratitude and penitence.

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42 views2 pages

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of Thanksgiving. He designated the day for Americans to give thanks for the blessings of fruitful fields, healthful skies, and peace with other nations despite civil war. Lincoln acknowledged that these blessings came from God's providence rather than any human efforts and invited Americans to offer gratitude and penitence.

Uploaded by

erikvsorensen
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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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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