JH> Here's wishing a great day tomorrow to all here who observe the
JH> holiday.

Abraham Lincoln Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day
October 3, 1863

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 had 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 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.

A. Lincoln



... Jim, I've been training for a week to do some _serious_ eating Thu.- Bubba
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