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 unequalled 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 theatre of military
conflict; while that theatre 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 defence, have not
arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe
had 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 battle-field; 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 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.

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclomation above is taken
from the collection of Lincoln's papers in the
Library of America series, Vol II, pp. 520-521.