Lincolns Proclamation
Amazingly!
Thanksgiving wasn’t made a national holiday until Lincoln included it along
with his famous Gettysburg Address.
Washington D.C. October,
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 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 ignite and to provoke their aggression, peace has
been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been
respected an 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 division 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 that
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 citizen 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 so 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 widow, 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. By
the President: Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln
plainly stated in his proclamation the Rebels were fighting a losing war.
Gen. Sherman was presently destroying the Atlanta-Saint Petersburg
Railroad, Atlanta City, and Confederate General Joe Johnsons Army.
Gen. Sheridan was destroying the bread basket of the South
the Shenandoah Valley, burning crops, houses, fences over an area 60 miles wide
and little or no opposition.
Vicksburg was
being sieged. The following year July 4, the Confederate Lt. Gen. Jon C.
Pemberton waved the white flag of surrender. The 1863 battle, a big score for Team Union,
replays day after day for visitors to
Vicksburg and its national military park. You can imagine the gunfire exploding
across the bluff as the residents huddled in caves for safety. Much of the action
occurred here, the bullets grazing their homes and endangering their lives and
livelihoods. The town is holding special events throughout the year. As any
veteran park goer knows, when a ranger says over the loudspeaker that the
orientation film will start in five minutes, you promptly take a seat in the
dark theater and sit quietly for the entire 18 minutes. Two-thirds of the
battle sites rest in the park, sprinkled along a 16 mile touring road.
Lincoln’s statement of continuance of
freedoms reminded me of Jonathan Daniels, valedictorian of Virginia Military
Institute. He was a theology student at Episcopal Divinity School when in the
summer of 1965 he stepped in front of a sheriff who aimed a gun at two black
girls to prevent them from entering a convenience store. The sheriff fired his
pistol taking Daniels life.
Upon
graduation from high school Daniels said,
“I wish you the
joy of a purposeful life. I wish you new worlds and the vision to see them. I
wish you the decency and the nobility of which you are capable”
DR. KARL WALLACE
D.D.S.
