The year that
is drawing towards 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 even the heart which is habitually insensible
to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequalled 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 theatre of military conflict; while that theatre 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 defence, have
not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had 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 battle-field; 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 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.
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."
Proclamation
of President Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863
