Words Lincoln Said

[Gene C]

This from Seward by Walter Stahr, p380...

"In late September or early October, Seward interrupted Lincoln one morning in his office. According to Frederick, the conversation went somethin like this: 'They say, Mr. President, that we are stealing away the rights of the states. So I have come today to advise you that there is another state right that I think we ought to steal'. What right, Lincoln asked, did Seward now want to take? 'The right to name Thanksgiving Day! 'Because the holiday was designated by several governors, it was observed on different days in different states. Would it not make more sense to have a single, national day? Seward presented Lincoln with a draft proclamation reciting the blessings the United States had enjoyed in the past year: bountiful harvests, domestic prosperity, and increasing population. Using Seward's draft, Lincoln designated the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving, the first such national Thanksgiving."

The proclamation seems to have been more intended towards a national fast day, prayer and repentance and has evolved into day focused more on Thanksgiving of material blessing.

Either way it seems sometimes that our society has shifted back to the same societal attitude that Lincoln was concerned about when he wrote
" We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

History does repeat itself. This seems to be a sentiment that our more liberal sections of our press, entertainment industry, schools and politicians want to ignore or ridicule. The consequences seem to make new headlines every week.