Abraham Lincoln, Writer

He didn’t go to a fancy Eastern college. In fact, Abraham Lincoln had virtually no formal education at all. However, his study of the Bible and the law, as well as his personal and professional hardships, turned him into one of the best writers in American history.

We all know the story of Abe’s Gettysburg Address: how he followed orator Edward Everett’s two-hour dedication address with a two-minute “ditty” of his own, prompting Everett to remark, “Mr President, you were able to say in a few minutes what I could not in two hours.” Abe had the gift of pith, not to mention eloquence. We hear a lot about the Gettysburg Address, but we seldom hear of the document President Lincoln wrote a few weeks earlier, establishing the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving.

Yes, things suck right now. They suck like Chicken McNuggets. But they sucked a lot more back in 1863. The Civil War had been dragging on for three long, bloody years; the Union had eked out a Pyrrhic victory at Gettysburg that summer; there were riots in New York, and fear was rampant that the Confederates might make a final desperate attempt to capture Washington, D.C.

In other words, there wasn’t a hell of a lot for the Union (or the Confederacy) to be thankful for, but Old Abe was wise. He knew that if we wanted Providence to continue to bless our unworthy asses, the country needed to show that it was thankful—grateful even—for the few blessings it did have.

Which is where Abe’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation comes in. Look at the writing. Let Abe’s masterful use of sentence variety and rhythm wash over you and try to imagine our current knucklehead (Bush II) composing such a piece. And as you read Abe’s words, try also to think about the dark times during which he wrote this (his own son died the year before) and realize that what has happened once can happen again.

And now, I bring you Abraham Lincoln:

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation:

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 everwatchful 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, 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

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you, Abe.

Now pass the turnip.