…observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving…
ANSWER: President Abraham Lincoln, “Proclamation for Thanksgiving” (October 3, 1863)
Abraham Lincoln (November 1863) Photo by Alexander Gardner
President Abraham Lincoln, “Proclamation for Thanksgiving” (October 3, 1863)
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.
Full Text and Source: Teaching American History
Lincoln’s Proclamation is considered the first in a string of unbroken Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations. Note well that there is no reference to the Pilgrims, Plymouth or the “First” Thanksgiving, which occurred sometime in October 1621.
For more on the first Thanksgiving, check out this video blog and Pop Quiz or read Don’t Know Much About the Pilgrims (HarperCollins)
