President Lincoln's Proclamation came out after the Battle of Gettysburg but before he issued the Gettysburg Address.
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Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
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 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 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 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, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have
hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the
United States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
