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The Heritage Foundation
Thanksgiving
Through the Years
Commentary by Lee Edwards
November 23, 2016
Lee Edwards is the distinguished fellow in conservative thought at The
Heritage Foundation's B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and
Politics. A leading historian of American conservatism, Edwards has
published 25 books, including biographies of Ronald Reagan, Barry
Goldwater and Edwin Meese III as well as histories of The Heritage
Foundation and the movement as a whole.
George Washington was first in war, first in peace, and in November
1789, the first president to proclaim a national day of thanksgiving,
openly acknowledging God as the source of all “the great and various
favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.”
Among the “favors” were a Declaration of Independence that inspires us
to the present day, a remarkable military victory over the most
powerful nation in the world, and an ingenious Constitution of checks
and balances that places “we the people” at the center of our
government.
For the next fourscore and seven years, most states honored a November
date as a day of prayer and fasting, but there was no national
celebration. Of the early presidents, only James Madison, in 1814 and
1815, issued proclamations.
Then in November 1863, with the Civil War still raging, President
Abraham Lincoln officially declared the last Thursday of November to be
Thanksgiving.
Bottom of Form
Echoing Washington, Lincoln asked Americans to “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 employment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.”
God heard the people’s prayers for an end to war and the preservation
of the Union, but He had yet to vouchsafe a “full” employment of
harmony and tranquility.
Succeeding presidents issued proclamations in the same providential
spirit of Lincoln and Washington, freely thanking God for His favors
and benefits. In 1904, for example, President Theodore Roosevelt said
that “the time has come [again] when a special day shall be set apart
in which to thank Him, who holds all nations in the hollow of His hand,
for the mercies thus vouchsafed to us.”
In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge said that Americans should “devoutly
give thanks to the Almighty for the many and great blessings they have
received, to seek His guidance that they may receive a continuance of
His favor.”
However, with the election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the
coming of secular progressivism, God was given an increasingly
secondary role while the “civic spirit” of America was extolled.
“May we on Thanksgiving Day and on every day,” said FDR in the middle
of World War II, careful not to use the “G” word, “express our
gratitude and zealously devote ourselves to our duties as individuals
and as a nation.”
President John F. Kennedy also skirted the word “God,” calling on
Americans to “renew that spirit [of Thanksgiving] by offering our
thanks for uncovenanted mercies, beyond our desert or merit, and by
resolving to meet the responsibilities placed upon us.”
Faithful to his progressive roots, President Barack Obama declared in
his 2012 Thanksgiving proclamation that “we are a people who draw our
deepest strength not from might or wealth but from our bonds to each
other” (but not, apparently, to a transcendent being).
As he did in so many ways, President Ronald Reagan broke sharply with
the progressives, taking inspiration from Washington and Lincoln and
reemphasizing the religious character of Thanksgiving.
Quoting the 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation, Reagan said that “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.” Reagan went
on: “God has blessed America and her people, and it is appropriate we
recognize this bounty.”
Thanksgiving has always been rooted in the notion, wrote commentator
Daniel Horowitz, “that as a nation, our entire prosperity, security,
and liberty is completely dependent upon God’s providence.”
So on this Thanksgiving Day in the year of our Lord two thousand
sixteen, let us give thanks and thanks and ever thanks to Him who gives
us life, liberty, and happiness.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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