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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 defiance, 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 dwell in the Heavens.
And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions
justly due to Him for such singular deliverance 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.
It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their
dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their
sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured
hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon;
and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy
Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are
blessed whose God is the Lord.
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