he 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 fields 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 suffers 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.