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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 had 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
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.
A. Lincoln
Proclamation
Appointing
a National Fast Day
The following document has often
been confused with Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation. Lincoln believed
that the civil war was God's judgment on the nation for its sinfulness
and made this proclamation of a national day of humiliation,
fasting, and prayer.
Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1863
By the President of the
United States of America.
A Proclamation.
Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly
recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God,
in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution,
requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National
prayer and humiliation.
And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of
men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to
confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with
assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and
to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and
proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is
the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law,
nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements
in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil
war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted
upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national
reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the
choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years,
in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as
no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have
forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied
and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the
deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by
some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken
success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of
redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made
us!
It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the
offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency
and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and
fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my
proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April,
1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do
hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their
ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of
public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to
the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties
proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us
then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that
the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with
blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the
restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former
happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness 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 thirtieth day of
March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty
seventh.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
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