Thanksgiving Proclamation
In the spring of 1861,
decades of simmering tensions between the northern and southern United States
over issues including states’ rights versus federal authority, westward
expansion and slavery exploded into the American Civil War (1861-65). The election
of the anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln as president in
1860 caused seven southern states to secede from the Union to form the
Confederate States of America; four more joined them after the first shots of
the Civil War were fired. Four years of brutal conflict were marked by historic
battles at Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, among others. The War
Between the States, pitted neighbor against
neighbor and in some cases, brother against brother. By the time it ended in
Confederate surrender in 1865, the Civil War proved to be the costliest war
ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed,
millions more injured and the population and territory of the South devastated.
Our commemoration of the 150
anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War should be less about-enactment of
battles by people dressed in period costumes and more about the principles at
the heart of the conflict: union vs. dis union; freedom against slavery.
No single human being
embodies so well those clashes as Abraham Lincoln. A polarizing figure when he
was elected, Lincoln is now venerated, but let’s not canonizes him. His
shortcomings make him accessible to us, more familiar, and less remote. He had
no shortage of faults and mistakes.
*He might have declared war on slavery in his first inaugural address.
He loathed slavery and, besides, none of his electoral votes came from the
slave states. *Frustrated by the
lack of success of his army early in the war, he could have sacked his
irresolute army commander, General George McClellan leader of the Army of the Potomac *He might have pushed earlier for
conscription and forbid men to purchase “substitutes” to fight in their place.
*He didn’t abide strictly vie the Constitution
when he suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
However, these lapses detract little from
Lincoln and make him all the more a cherished cause, in their absence; he might
have been turned into a plaster saint and made unapproachable.
Amazingly! Thanksgiving
wasn’t made a national holiday until Lincoln included it along with his famous
Gettysburg Address. Washington, D.C.
October, 1863
BUT the exact date of that
first celebration is not known. There are only two written accounts about the
1621 event in the Plymouth settlement, and
neither mentions a date or month. The writings do reference the harvest having
occurred so the gathering did take place in the fall. Celebrations of Thanksgiving
were commonplace in the lives of the Pilgrims. The settlers believed God had
power over everything in their lives would stop to give thanks if things were
going well in their lives—like a successful harvest or surviving winter—and
observed days of fasting and prayer in times of trouble. They would have
periodic days of fasting and days of thanksgiving depending on how their world
was going so the First Thanksgiving was not seen as an occasion to necessarily
be remembered or repeated.
Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation
Washington, D.C. October, 1863
By the President of the United States of America:
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 sours from which they come, others have been added, which
are of extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften
even the heat 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 ignite and to provoke their
aggression peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been
maintained, the law have been respected an 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 division of wealth and so strength for the fields of peaceful industry
to the national defense have not arrested the growth, the shuttle or the ship;
the axe has enlarged the border of our settlements, and the mines, as well of
iron and coal 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 thaw consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted
to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedoms.
To be continued…
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
TO READ MORE DR. WALLACE STORIES GO TO: karwallaceblog.blogspot.com
