"Gobbling" isn't all there is to
Thanksgiving Day, really....
What's the meaning of this?
Thanksgiving in Historic American Style
Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863:
(click here for WORD doc)
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 had 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 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.
--Abraham Lincoln - October 3, 1863
(from the collection of Lincoln's papers in the Library of America series, Vol II, pp. 520-521).
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