Thanksgiving is
a national holiday in the United States and is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in
November.
Thanksgiving
Proclamation:
Thanksgiving, 1864, was proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln in these
words:
"It
has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year...to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers
in their camps, and our sailors on the rivers and seas, with unusual health.
"He has largely augmented our free population
by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth, and has crowned
the labor of our working men in every department of industry with abundant rewards.
"Moreover, He has been pleased to animate
and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage and resolution sufficient for the great trial ... into which we have
been brought by cause of freedom and humanity ...
"Now, therefore, I .... do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday
in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they
may e then, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the universe.
"And
I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid, that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the
dust, and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the great Disposer
of events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him
to assign as a dwelling-place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations."
~~~~~
The First Thanksgiving Proclamation
June 29, 1676
On June 20, 1676, the governing council of Charlestown,
Massachusetts, held a meeting to determine how best to express thanks for the
good fortune that had seen their community securely established. By unanimous vote they instructed Edward Rawson, the clerk,
to proclaim June 29 as a day of thanksgiving, our first. That proclamation is reproduced here in the same language and spelling
as the original:
"The Holy God having by a long and Continual Series of his Afflictive dispensations in and by the
present War with the Heathen Natives of this land, written and brought to pass bitter things against his own Covenant people
in this wilderness, yet so that we evidently discern that in the midst of his judgments he hath remembered mercy, having remembered
his Footstool in the day of his sore displeasure against us for our sins, with many singular Intimations of his Fatherly Compassion,
and regard; reserving many of our Towns from Desolation Threatened, and attempted by the Enemy, and giving us especially of
late with many of our Confederates many signal Advantages against them, without such Disadvantage to ourselves as formerly
we have been sensible of, if it be the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed, It certainly bespeaks our positive Thankfulness,
when our Enemies are in any measure disappointed or destroyed; and fearing the Lord should take notice under so many Intimations
of his returning mercy, we should be found an Insensible people, as not standing before Him with Thanksgiving, as well as
lading him with our Complaints in the time of pressing Afflictions:
The Council has thought meet to appoint and set
apart the 29th day of this instant June, as a day of Solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his
Goodness
and Favour, many Particulars of which mercy might be Instanced, but we doubt not those who are sensible of God's Afflictions,
have been as diligent to espy him returning to us; and that the Lord may behold us as a People offering Praise and thereby
glorifying Him; the Council doth commend it to the Respective Ministers, Elders and people of this Jurisdiction; Solemnly
and seriously to keep the same Beseeching that being persuaded by the mercies of God we may all, even this whole people offer
up our bodies and souls as a living and acceptable Service unto God by Jesus Christ."