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(Copy of text) October 3,
1863
By the President of the United States
A Proclamation
The year that is drawing toward 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 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 provoke
their aggressions, 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 heretofore.
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.
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 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 Stated 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 United States the eighty-eighth.
Abraham Lincoln
[Text copied from file
received from the
Illinois Historic
Preservation Agency] |
