ThanksGiving

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S

1863 THANKSGIVING DAY PROCLAMATION

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 unequaled 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 Unites States 
the Eighty-eighth.

          By the President: Abraham Lincoln

          William H. Seward,
          Secretary of State
ThanksGiving

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S

1863 THANKSGIVING DAY PROCLAMATION

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