Thought you might enjoy reading the original Proclamation of Thanksgiving given by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863

"The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bountied, 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 field 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 theretofore. 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 moral 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 on 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 humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, comment 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."


//signed//
A. Lincoln

Sarah Josepha Hale

Few people know that modern-day Thanksgiving was established by Abraham Lincoln upon the urging of Sarah Josepha Hale who, from 1821 until 1863 (42 years!), wrote editorials in women's magazines, particularly the popular monthly Godey's Lady's Book, arguing for a national celebration of Thanksgiving on a single day each year. Her editorial in September 1863,. published in the middle of the Civil War, sparked the interest of President Lincoln, who thought it was an excellent idea that would bring together the divided country.

On October 3, 1863, he decreed that the last Thursday in each November should be a national Thanksgiving Day. Just weeks before he composed the soaring sentences of the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln began his 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation with the words: "The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies."




[Edited 11/22/04 9:17am]