By the President of the United States of
America.
A Proclamation.
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
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
