In St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 the First Mass in the New World was celebrated and thus the first true Thanksgiving in North America was celebrated
The year that is
drawing toward 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 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 provoke their aggressions, 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 plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax 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, tranquility, and
union.
In testimony
whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated
States to be affixed.
— President Abraham
Lincoln, Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, Oct. 3,
1863
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