Happy Thanksgiving!
Because it is Thanksgiving I thought it best to set aside the series on the “Nature of Government” to give thanks and honor to a very tenacious woman. Thanksgiving was first celebrated by the Pilgrims who were grateful for God’s faithfulness in providing friendly Indians to teach them the survival skills needed in the new land. Even in the face of their great losses, each family had lost family members in that first year, they were still dedicated to God and recognized it was He who had provided for them.
George Washington was the first president to proclaim a day of thanksgiving, issuing his request on October 3, 1789. This was a special day and not an establishment of a yearly observance. It was 74 years later when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it a national observance for the last Thursday of November each year. What very few know is that there was a woman behind this move who requested that a date be set to observe Thanksgiving so that every state would observe it on the same date.
This is her story. Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She explained, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”
This was not her first request. Sarah had been lobbying for a national day of Thanksgiving for fifteen years as the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. President Lincoln was the only President who responded to her. She never gave up her cause but continued to petition each new administration. Sarah’s story reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow who never quit petitioning the judge for justice against her adversary. In that same way Sarah Josepha Hale never quit until she got the result she wanted – a unity in giving thanks and praise to God on the same day.
We owe a debt of gratitude to this unknown woman who successfully brought about a unified holiday for all Americans. So on this Thanksgiving Day let us be thankful for the unsung heroes both past and present who have persistently fought to make America great. And let us commit to being just as persistent in our fight to protect the values and principles that have made America a nation that has drawn people from all over the world seeking better lives and opportunities. Let our prayers for this nation be as persistent as that of the widow in Luke 18.
Below is the text of that proclamation. I think you will be struck by the fact that this proclamation came during the darkest time of our nation.
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 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, 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
(Seward actually penned the proclamation.)