The Relevance of Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

The circumstances of the United States (such as it was) in 1863 and now in 2022 are greatly different, but there is much to learn from President Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation issued then. Consider the relevance of Lincoln’s lasting words written in that momentous year. 

Here in the U.S., this Thursday (Nov. 24) is Thanksgiving Day, and across the country people will be scrambling to be with loved ones for that traditional time for families to be together—and sometimes finding traveling difficult as depicted in the 1987 comedy film Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

The USAmerican Thanksgiving Day “myth” is traced back to 1621, and for decades from the early days of the USA in 1789 on, national thanksgiving days were observed only intermittently.

But on October 3, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, Pres. Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation, calling for November 26 of that year to be a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."

This year, then, marks the 160th year that Thanksgiving Day has been observed annually, and for the last 80 years the official national holiday has been on the fourth Thursday of November.

In recent decades, Thanksgiving Day has become less and less a time for giving thanks to “our beneficent Father” and more and more a time of feasting, arguing with relatives around the dinner table, watching football games, and even shopping for Christmas presents.

Perhaps the time has come to go back to Lincoln’s proclamation and to recover his original intention. The fall of 1863 was certainly not the “best of times” to have a national day of thanksgiving. But in spite of the difficulties the President was looking back with thanksgiving and looking forward in hope.

In January 1863, Lincoln issued the Proclamation Emancipation, changing the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free.

Then, exactly three months before that 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation, the victorious battle at Gettysburg on July 3 marked the turning point in the Civil War. Thus, in that call to national thanksgiving, the President noted the coming likelihood of a “large increase in freedom.”*

Lincoln’s call for thanksgiving also included an appeal for citizens “to 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, tranquility and Union.”

In his second inaugural address, delivered seventeen months later on March 4, 1865, Lincoln reiterated his call for thanksgiving with an appeal for magnanimity. That magnificent speech/sermon ended with these words:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.**

In this month of the U.S. midterm elections, which were held following a long period of militant mud-slinging and rancorous political campaigning, let’s join in the spirit of Lincoln to give thanks that democracy and the common good were largely victorious.

Further, as we celebrate Thanksgiving Day this year, let’s ask our family and friends to join us in going forward “with malice toward none and justice for all,” seeking to do all we can to create a nation, and our own neighborhood, with peace and justice for all. 

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* Lincoln’s outstanding Gettysburg address was delivered on November 19 of that year. I recommend reading Heather Cox Richardson’s last Saturday’s informative “letter” regarding that address (see here).

** On Feb. 28, 2015, I made a blog post titled “Lincoln’s Greatest Speech/Sermon,” which was how I referred to his second inaugural address.