I can’t be alone in thinking our nation could use a healthy dose of Abraham Lincoln right about now, can I?
Come on, closet Lincoln-philes—out yourself. There’s no time like Thanksgiving to share your love of our country’s greatest president.
One year, my husband had our oldest son memorize this proclamation to recite at Thanksgiving dinner. It was a great exercise in memorization with a bit of American history thrown in. As he practiced the speech in the weeks before Thanksgiving, the entire family was steeped in these wise words and I became a lifelong fan.
Some highlights from Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863 (read it in its entirety below):
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 consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
Population growth is an understood blessing and something for which a country should be grateful. How positively refreshing!
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.
God. Mentioned in a public speech. With humility and not a hint of self-serving poltical-speak. More, please.
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 ...
Public recognition of the reality of sin and a national need for repentance? God bless you, my dear Lincoln!
Here is the proclamation, in all its awesome entirety.
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 consiousness 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
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Sadly, he wouldn’t make it in polotics today. We do need good moral leaders such as Lincoln to lead us out of this darkness that has steadily befallen our nation since the 1960’s.
Beautiful! I wish our current President would read this.
Amen! Lincoln is an amazing model of political wisdom, who always seemed to keep his heart and head focused on the right goals. I love how he used his speeches to educate, persuade and move his audience; he neither berated them nor avoided the issues.
His political courage was remarkable as well, since his public efforts met generally with failure—elected only once to the House, lost to Douglas for Senate, only won the Presidency because the Democrats were split. Commitment to the true and good were first for him.
Lincoln the greatest president? not quite, he ranks with FDR at the top for expanding the power of the presidency, and laid the foundation for the expanse of federal government that is going on now. While Lincoln was a great man personally, and was a just and moral leader, his expansion of presidential powers gave the precedent that men down the road have used for much, much, different goals.
I have to agree with Alex. I am a firm believer in small government and States` rights, and Lincoln pretty much abolished the idea of both during his presidency. Yes, he also abolished slavery, which was a necessary, difficult and moral thing to do HOWEVER when you really look at the big picture and do some historical research, he also gave the presidency AND the federal government powers that, I personally think, would have made our founders cringe…...
Amen to Lincoln’s excellent sentiment - he knew how to speak to the heart of a circumstance! Sadly though, I, too, rank him as one of the worst presidents in American History. He was, in many way, the architect of the decimation of the South during and after the civil war. He fundamentally modified the philosophy of the nation against States’ rights and toward federal domination.
All said and done though - happy turkey day to all!
Lincoln’s legacy is mostly fabrication created by Carl Sandburg to sell his books. Lincoln not only grabbed all the power he could for the presidency, he tried to destroy anyone who got in his way. He not only suspended congress and habeus corpus, but was the only president (so far) to establish a standing army to fight American citizens during a time of peace (That is BEFORE the Civil War began)! His heroism is mostly smoke and mirrors, and as far as him freeing any slaves, that was donein 1865, with the ratification of the 13th ammendment. Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” specifically gave freedom to the Southern states - the states over which Lincoln had no power at the time. Read it. In fact Lincoln held that there is a physical difference between the races which would forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. That’s the real Lincoln. The rest is fantasy.
I have to agree with Don here.
For further information,read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Lincoln-Abraham-Agenda-Unnecessary/dp/0761526463/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290889022&sr=1-1
I wondered whether DiLorenzo’s book wasn’t lurking in the background of some of these comments. The accuracy of many of his claims has been challenged:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=12887
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27346
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