Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving.

It is a unique holiday in America in that we take a day to give thanks to God for the blessings we have received.  Thanksgiving as a tradition began early in American. 

When we think of Thanksgiving, we think of the Pilgrims.  They are an amazing part of American history.  But they were not the first to celebrate Thanksgiving.  IN 1565, Spanish settlers in what is now St. Augustine Florida celebrated the Catholic Mass of Thanksgiving.

In 1621, the Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving.

It was not until 1863, that America celebrated Thanksgiving as a holiday.  In the dark days of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln directed that there be a day of “Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

Thanksgiving has been a tradition since then.

In both good times and bad, Americans give thanks to God for the wonderful blessings we have.

This thanksgiving is one of those dark times.  Millions of Americans are out of work and millions are slipping into poverty.  America is stressed almost to the breaking point.

Yet this year, once again we give thanks.

Despite the problem, America is a remarkable nation and Americans are an exceptional people.  It is this exceptionalism that makes America a great nation and allows Americans to do things others only dream of doing.

Today most of our businesses close and we spend the day with family.

Despite the times of trouble we see now, Americans still have much to be thankful for.

On behalf of all of us at Tea Party Nation, we wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. 

The original Thanksgiving proclamation

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.

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