27Nov

Abraham Lincoln, Writer

• Saved in: Craft, Writers
• by Chris Orcutt
• with Comments Off on 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.

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