The Source of Our Thanksgiving

Most of us can probably recite the rudimentary elements of the story surrounding the “First Thanksgiving.” Still others can perhaps recollect that it was President Abraham Lincoln on October 3, 1863 that signed a proclamation establishing that national holiday we now enjoy as “Thanksgiving Day.” However, I imagine few of us have stopped to actually read Lincoln’s proclamation.

A copy of this presidential proclamation can be quickly found on the internet, and I urge your review of it. As I read it, I was struck by the introspection recorded amidst the formality. In considering the timing of the proclamation – while the Civil War yet waged on – I was taken aback by how it recognized goodness even in the midst of such division.

Lincoln first noted why his proclamation was necessary. He proclaimed, “To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come. . ..” Have you ever done that? We are surrounded by such wealth, prosperity, and, oft-times, overindulgence that we find ourselves complaining about such things that - were we to be deprived of them - our life would yet carry on unimpeded. Lincoln was right: “we are prone to forget the source.”

What had Lincoln and the nation he led at that time to be thankful for anyway? After all, we understand the Civil War to be the epitome of divisiveness in our country. Brothers battered brothers, neighbors warred against neighbors, kin killed kin. Yet, in his decree, Lincoln notes how the country has had peace with other countries, order yet existed, laws still controlled, and harmony lived on – save for those areas of military conflict. Though war was abundantly present, Lincoln was quick to note that the population had increased, industry was alive and in excellent production, and the Union had a certain future. In short, despite division, the nation had been truly blessed.

But what was the “source” of these blessings that Lincoln urged us to not forget? His Thanksgiving Day Proclamation answers for us: “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.”

Lincoln recognized that the efforts by the politicos of his day had worked only woe and destruction upon the nation, yet peace and prosperity remained. Thus, if indeed the country did enjoy such blessings, something beyond human control, beyond our fathoming, beyond our ken, must have been working within the human framework to provide abundance, blessing, and a hope for a peaceful future.

Thanksgiving Day has now passed for this year. Our electoral season also has passed, for the moment. Tomorrow we return to our desks to mete out the labor before us. We live today as citizens in a country, by all political accounts, divided, yet one, by all economic accounts, profusely blessed.

There must be something more to our world that makes things good than the politics that produce the laws governing our society. I suspect that President George Washington might have agreed with Lincoln when, in his Farewell Address, Washington noted, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.”

Our laws, like our blessings, must be derived from something beyond our humanity, from something truly able to bestow upon us “unalienable rights,” lest our laws coincide with whatever fancy occupies the moment. And that is something for which to be truly thankful.

Copyright: Jeremiah G. Dys, Esq. May not be used absent express, written permission. Please contact the author for permission to reprint.