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Author and Novelist Glynn Young

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Thanksgiving

Two Thanksgiving Day Proclamations

November 28, 2024 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

George Washington’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, Oct. 3, 1789

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed—to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, Oct. 3, 1863

Washington DC, October 3, 1863

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 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 United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward, Secretary of State

Top photograph by Virginia Simionato via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Why We Celebrate Thanksgiving

November 24, 2022 By Glynn Young 2 Comments

We celebrate Thanksgiving Day because of Henry VIII, the Gunpowder Plot, the 1619 landing of 38 English colonists in Virginia (without slaves), the Pilgrims, the end of the American Revolution, the beginning of the American Republic, the Civil War, and the need to stimulate the economy in the late 1930s. And it might have been called Evacuation Day. 

Thanksgiving as we know it today in the United States evolved over a period of some 400 years. The idea of thanksgiving observances goes back to the Protestant Reformation in England under Henry VIII, consolidating a rather large number of thanksgiving holidays during the Roman Catholic period. Special days of Thanksgiving would be called for military victories and for deliverance from such events as the Gunpowder Plot of 1606.

Washington’s Proclamation in 1789

The idea of Thanksgiving and feasting, but without a fixed date, had been around by the time of the American colonial period. The first known Thanksgiving celebration in America was not in 1621 with the Pilgrims but in 1619 in Virginia, when 38 English settlers arrived on the ship Margaret on Dec. 4 and immediately celebrated their landing with a day of thanksgiving, as required under the charter of the London Company which sponsored them. The landing day was to be observed in perpetuity. 

The Pilgrims (and the Puritans) brought their tradition of thanksgiving days with them from Europe. The Pilgrims celebrated their first day of thanksgiving in 1621, and it is this observance that’s considered the forerunner of what we know today.

Not everyone in the American colonies celebrated a day of thanksgiving. The observance varied by colony (and later by state); in New York, for example, thanksgiving day was known as Evacuation Day, an observance of the departure of British troops in 1783 after the end of the American Revolution. George Washington led his army down Manhattan Island to what is now Battery Park in a grand triumphal march. And it was Washington who, as the nation’s first Preisdent, proclaimed the first National Day of Thanksgiving on Nov. 26, 1789. By the end of the 18th century, the last Thursday in November had become the day went most states observed a Day of Thanksgiving.

Lincoln’s Proclamation in 1863

It was Abraham Lincoln who made it an official national day of observance. In November of 1863 (the same month as the Gettysburg Address), Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving to be observed by all states on the final Thursday of November. This was in recognition of both the bountiful harvests the Northern states had experienced and the military victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. 

Thanksgiving Day remained the last Thursday in November until 1939, when President Roosevelt proclaimed it to be the next-to-last Thursday of November. This was done to stimulate retail sales by extending the Christmas shopping season – an early recognition of the commercial importance of Black Friday as the day after Thanksgiving. Finally, in 1941, Congress and Roosevelt officially made the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. And there it’s remained ever since.

But for all the reasons it was created and observed, what has been at its heart from the beginning is thankfulness to God for his provision and faithfulness. And that is, perhaps, the most important aspect of this holiday we call Thanksgiving.

Top photograph: Union soldiers celebrate the first national Thanksgiving Day in 1863.

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Meet the Man

An award-winning speechwriter and communications professional, Glynn Young is the author of three novels and the non-fiction book Poetry at Work.

 

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