On this Thanksgiving, we are embracing popular culture. Abraham Lincoln has been practically everywhere. The summer brought Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, an action, fantasy horror movie based on the novel of the same name. Newsweek featured the cover story “The Great Campaigner: How Lincoln Traded Favors, Twisted Arms and Bullied Friends to Win the Good Fight.” And now playing in movie theaters is Steve Spielberg’s Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role.
Our selection isn’t nearly as flashy. It does have the advantage of the real Lincoln. We have reprinted below from the Library of America edition, Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1859-1865, his 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation, in which he established the national holiday we celebrate today, on the fourth Thursday in November. Presidents have been issuing such proclamations ever since, as President Obama did on Tuesday. The first carries a particular poignancy, the country engaged in a civil war, Lincoln, leader and politician, using the vehicle to support his cause, preservation of the union.
What catches attention is the perspective Lincoln brings, his emphasis on all the reasons for the country to give thanks, even in such a devastating wartime. More, there is the echo of magnanimity, so distinctive about Lincoln, perhaps his greatest gift as a leader, his sure, graceful understanding of what truly mattered.
Take a look, and Happy Thanksgiving.
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 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 gradually 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 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, 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 the testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President:
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
