ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
Washington, D.C.
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 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 defense, 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 Unites States the
Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
********************
Proclamation Appointing a National Fast
Day
(OFTEN CONFUSED
WITH “THE THANKSGIVING PROCLAIMATION”)
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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