Thanksgiving Day, 2009

As noted in last year’s post on Thanksgiving, it was not recognized as an official day of thanksgiving and remembrance until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it so in 1863. The need for our country to set aside a time for thanksgiving had, however, been recognized in two proclamations issued by George Washington, one in 1789 and the other in 1795.

In Washington’s first proclamation, it was recommended that the “People of the United States” devote Thursday, November 26, as a day of “service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.” In Washington’s second proclamation, it was recommended that “all persons” set aside Thursday, February 19, “as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.”

Other portions of Washington’s thanksgiving proclamations deserve regard and reflection.

In the 1789 proclamation, Washington continued, in part, as follows:

“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 public 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 government, peace, and concord.”

In the 1795 proclamation, Washington continued, in part, as follows:

“And at the same time humbly and fervently to beseech the kind Author of these blessings graciously to prolong them to us; to imprint on our hearts a deep and solemn sense of our obligations to Him for them; to teach us rightly to estimate their immense value; to preserve us from the arrogance of prosperity, and from hazarding the advantages we enjoy by delusive pursuits; to dispose us to merit the continuance of His favors by not abusing them . . . to render this country more and more a safe and propitious asylum for the unfortunate of other countries; to extend among us true and useful knowledge . . . and finally, to impart all the blessings we possess, or ask for ourselves, to the whole family of mankind.”