> Subject: Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Speech, 1863
>>
>>
>>
>> We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven, we have been
>> preserved these many years in peace and prosperity, we have grown in numbers,
>> wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
>> But we have forgotten God.

<<snipped>>




This sounds like a modern fundamentalist rewrite.  Lincoln never spoke these
words. There was a Proclamation of Thanksgiving, but it was written, not
spoken, and the words and meaning are totally different:


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, tranquillity and Union.

Abraham Lincoln



> Subject: Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Speech, 1863
>
>
>
> We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven, we have been
> preserved these many years in peace and prosperity, we have grown in numbers,
> wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
> But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which
> preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we
> have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these
> blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
> Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel
> the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God
> that made us.
>
> It has seemed to me fit and proper that God 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 land, to set apart and observe the third Thursday in November as a
> day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the
> heavens.
>
> Abraham Lincoln
>
> October 3, 1863
>
>
>
>
>
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> End of VA-ROOTS Digest - 26 Nov 2002 to 27 Nov 2002 (#2002-255)
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