by the President of the United States of America
The
year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the
blessings of fruitful years 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 theater of military
conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the
advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of
peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow,
the shuttle, or the ship; the ax 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 theretofore.
Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has
been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, 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,
tranquility, and union.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
[Signed]
A. Lincoln
A. Lincoln
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