This year’s Thanksgiving holiday was better – in many ways than last year’s holiday. This year we again were entertained by the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, while today, shoppers are crowding stores looking for Black Friday sales.
But we still have the specter of the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic is not over, but the worst of it almost certainly is. Vaccines have allowed most Americans to gather safely.
While Thanksgiving has traditionally been the start of a joyous season ending in welcoming the coming new year, the country is hardly in a joyous mood. Even as people are happy to be together again, many are mourning the losses of the past two years and deeply worried about the country’s future.
It is interesting that we choose to be thankful during times of crisis, or as we are coming out of a crisis. Let’s go back in time to October 3, 1863. Yes, we were right in the middle of the Civil War, yet President Abraham Lincoln called for a nation-wide Day of Thanksgiving.
Abraham Lincoln declares Thanksgiving a national holiday
In 1863, two years into the Civil War, we were a country deeply divided, much like we are today. It was a time of political strife, brought on by slavery. The war resulted in at least 1,030,000 casualties (3 percent of the population), including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease—and 50,000 civilians.
So in the midst of this horrible war, Lincoln issued a proclamation that is most appropriate today, believe it or not. He used the power of his office to declare the last Thursday in November as a National Day of Thanksgiving.
In the proclamation, Lincoln pointed out that the blessings to be thankful for are not the work of “mortal hand,” but instead are “the gracious gifts of the Most High God.” There is not a single mention of “pride,” but Lincoln, perhaps, scolding the public, does call for “humble penitence for our national perverseness.”
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, 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 United States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
SCOTT DREYER: Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation Declaring Thanksgiving a National Holiday
On Thanksgiving 2021, we are divided by hate, constantly being stirred up by conspiracy theories, political divisions, hateful rhetoric by our lawmakers, and a counter-culture that believes guns are the answer to solving problems.
As Lincoln said in 1863, even as we celebrate the bounties and blessings of this season, we must not forget from where they come. And yes, we do need to bow our heads in “humble penitence for our national perverseness.”
