Good Morning...An official religious holiday for a secular nation

[Okla-homey]

October 3, 1863 : Lincoln proclaims official Thanksgiving holiday

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144 years ago n this day in 1863, expressing gratitude for a pivotal Federal victory at the little Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announces that henceforth the nation shall celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on the fourth Thursday in November.

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Signing document accompanying the announcement the fourth Thursday in November is Thanksgiving

The speech, which was actually written by Secretary of State William "Icebox" Seward* declared that the fourth Thursday of every November thereafter would be considered an official U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving.

This announcement harkened back to when George Washington was in his first term as the first president in 1789 and the young American nation had only a few years earlier emerged from the American Revolution. At that time, George Washington called for an official celebratory "day of public thanksgiving and prayer." While Congress overwhelmingly agreed to Washington’s suggestion, the holiday did not yet become an annual event.

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Federal soldiers in the field celebrating Thanksgiving at a sutler's tent. Sutlers were civilians licensed to accompany US forces and sell them tasty vittles, alcohol and other sundries not available through the official supply system. They were the nineteenth century equivalent of the post exchange (PX).

Thomas Jefferson, the third president, felt that public demonstrations of piety to a higher power, like that celebrated at Thanksgiving, were inappropriate in a nation based in part on the separation of church and state.

Subsequent presidents agreed with him. In fact, no official Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by any president between 1815 and this day in 1863 when Lincoln took the opportunity to thank God and the US Army who both had recently handed the Slaveocrats a stunning defeat.

The fourth Thursday of November remained the annual day of Thanksgiving from 1863 until 1939. Then, at the tail-end of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, hoping to boost the economy by providing shoppers and merchants a few extra days to conduct business between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, moved Thanksgiving to November’s third Thursday.

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FDR. He shifted Thanksgiving one week earlier to allow for more shopping days before Christmas. It didn't stick.

In 1941, however, Roosevelt bowed to Congress’ insistence that the fourth Thursday of November be re-set permanently, without alteration, as the official Thanksgiving holiday.

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Therefore, next month, when you're lying on the couch with your top pants button undone while rubbing your belly full of turkey...remember Old Abe. He set the whole thing up.

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*William Seward. Called "Icebox" because as Secretary of State, he engineered the purchase of Alaska from Russia. His enemies referred to the purchase as a waste of funds, and called the frozen northern territory "Seward's Icebox."

BEAT TEXAS

[Harry Beanbag]

I've never heard of Thanksgiving being a religious holiday.

[Okla-homey]

I've never heard of Thanksgiving being a religious holiday.

Wake up man! Who, pray tell, is being "thanked?" ;)

[OklahomaTuba]

I've never heard of Thanksgiving being a religious holiday.

You should read George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation then.


WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"


NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our sasety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. (signed) G. Washington

[Harry Beanbag]

Wake up man! Who, pray tell, is being "thanked?" ;)


I thought we were thanking the Indians for planting fish and corn growing in the same spot thus keeping the Pilgrims alive. ;)

Actually, I just never thought of it as thanking God for some reason. I'm not really sure why.