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 unequaled 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 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 plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe
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, tranquillity
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
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State