Latest / Theology Made Podcast / Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation: How Gratitude Was Born in a Time of War

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Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation: How Gratitude Was Born in a Time of War · Theology Made Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Theology Made Podcast, I'm Jordan.
• 0:07
  In today's episode,
• 0:08
  we're looking at Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thanksgiving feels timeless.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Every November,
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  SPEAKER_01: families gather around tables,
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  SPEAKER_01: turkeys roast in ovens,
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  SPEAKER_01: parades roll down city streets,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: and for whatever reason,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: it's always the Detroit Lions and Cowboys on TV.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: It feels as though Americans have always done this,
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  SPEAKER_01: that Thanksgiving has always just been a part of the nation's rhythm.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: But the truth is far different.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Through more than two centuries after the Pilgrim's Feast,
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  SPEAKER_01: Thanksgiving was irregular,
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  SPEAKER_01: local,
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  SPEAKER_01: and inconsistent.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't until 1863,
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  SPEAKER_01: in the darkest year of the Civil War,
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  SPEAKER_01: that Lincoln proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving.
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  SPEAKER_01: And here's the interesting surprise.
• 0:48
  The origin of America's favorite holiday is not found in
• 0:51
  abundance,
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  but it's found in crisis.
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  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't about peace, but in war.
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  SPEAKER_01: And to understand Thanksgiving as we know it,
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  SPEAKER_01: you have to hear Lincoln's words and the theology that shaped them.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: The year was 1863.
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  SPEAKER_01: America was tearing itself apart.
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  The war had dragged on for nearly three years and the dream of
• 1:09
  a quick resolution
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: had long since evaporated.
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  SPEAKER_01: What began as a clash over secession had become something far darker.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is a war for the nation's soul.
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  SPEAKER_01: Fields from Pennsylvania to Tennessee were soaked in blood.
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  Towns that once echoed with the laughter of markets and church
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  bells now only
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  SPEAKER_01: echoed with the sounds of cannons and the cries of the wounded.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: names that would become eternal in American memory.
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  Antietam,
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  Fredericksburg,
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  Chancellerville,
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  and then,
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  of course,
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  the infamous Gettysburg.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: These were not yet history lessons.
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  SPEAKER_01: These were still fresh wounds.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the scale of the slaughter...
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  SPEAKER_01: It's almost beyond comprehension.
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  At Antino alone,
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  in a single day,
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  more than 22,000 men were killed,
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  wounded,
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  or missing.
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  SPEAKER_01: Newspapers, they called it a harvest of death.
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  SPEAKER_01: And by 1863, the war had consumed everything.
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  SPEAKER_01: Money, lives, faith.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was as if the nation itself was being crucified.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Families were divided.
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  SPEAKER_01: Brothers fought brothers.
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  SPEAKER_01: Neighbors turned on neighbors.
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  SPEAKER_01: Churches split along north and south.
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  SPEAKER_01: The question wasn't just whether the Union would survive.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was whether America's moral conscience would.
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  SPEAKER_01: And at the center of it all stood Abraham Lincoln,
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  SPEAKER_01: a man who looked more like a prophet than a politician.
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  SPEAKER_01: His face had aged a decade in just two years.
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  SPEAKER_01: Deep lines cut into his cheeks,
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  SPEAKER_01: his eyes,
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  SPEAKER_01: often described as melancholy,
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  SPEAKER_01: seemed to carry the sorrow of the nation itself.
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  SPEAKER_01: Lincoln was weary.
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  SPEAKER_01: Physically, emotionally, spiritually.
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  SPEAKER_01: He had lost his beloved son Willie the year before,
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  SPEAKER_01: a tragedy that plunged him into profound grief.
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  SPEAKER_01: Some say he never recovered.
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  SPEAKER_01: Friends recall seeing him kneel alone in prayer in the White House,
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  SPEAKER_01: tears on his face,
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  SPEAKER_01: asking why God had allowed such suffering,
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  SPEAKER_01: both his own and the nation's.
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  SPEAKER_01: And politically, he was under siege.
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  SPEAKER_01: Radical abolitionists accused him of being too cautious.
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  SPEAKER_01: War Democrats accused him of being too radical.
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  SPEAKER_01: The press mocked him as a bumbling tyrant.
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  SPEAKER_01: The South despised him as the destroyer in their minds of liberty.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the North often doubted whether he could win.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then spiritually, Lincoln wrestled.
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  SPEAKER_01: He was not a, what we'd call, conventional believer.
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  SPEAKER_01: He rarely spoke of Christ by name.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yet he was haunted,
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  perhaps even driven by the sense that God's hand was at work in
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  the nation's agony.
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  He told friends,
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  And in the summer of 1863,
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  the war reached its turning point.
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  SPEAKER_01: The Union had just won at Gettysburg, a costly but crucial victory.
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  50,000 men were dead or wounded,
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  their bodies scattered across the Pennsylvania countryside.
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  SPEAKER_01: And in the same week,
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  SPEAKER_01: Union forces under General Grant captured Vicksburg,
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  giving the North control of the Mississippi River and
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  effectively cutting the
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  SPEAKER_01: Confederacy in two.
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  For the first time,
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  Lincoln saw a glimmer of hope,
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  and yet that hope was tempered by grief.
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  SPEAKER_01: The victory at Gettysburg had come at an unimaginable cost.
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  SPEAKER_01: Lincoln visited the battlefield months later and said,
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  SPEAKER_01: we cannot dedicate,
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  SPEAKER_01: we cannot consecrate,
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  SPEAKER_01: we cannot hollow this ground.
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  He meant that the soldiers' blood had already done what
• 4:06
  speeches could not.
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  And it was that same season of triumph and tragedy that Lincoln
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  made one of his
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  SPEAKER_01: most remarkable proclamations.
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  SPEAKER_01: While the war still raged,
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  SPEAKER_01: he called the nation,
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  SPEAKER_01: not just the Union,
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  SPEAKER_01: not just the North,
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  SPEAKER_01: but the whole of America,
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  SPEAKER_01: to pause and give thanks.
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  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
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  SPEAKER_01: Think about the audacity of that.
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  SPEAKER_01: The United States was fractured.
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  SPEAKER_01: Fields were burning.
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  SPEAKER_01: Families were burying sons.
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  SPEAKER_01: The war was far from over.
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  And yet,
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  in the very heart of the storm,
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  Lincoln dared to speak the language of gratitude.
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  SPEAKER_01: And his reasoning wasn't political.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was theological.
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  SPEAKER_01: Lincoln believed that even in chaos,
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  SPEAKER_01: God's providence was real,
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  SPEAKER_01: that blessings and bloodshed could coexist under divine sovereignty,
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  that Thanksgiving wasn't the reward for peace but the practice
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  that made peace
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  SPEAKER_01: possible.
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  SPEAKER_01: So in the autumn of 1863,
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  SPEAKER_01: while muskets still thundered across the South,
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  SPEAKER_01: while the Union still trembled on the edge,
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  Lincoln took up his pen to call up broken people to remember
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  the giver of every
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  SPEAKER_01: good and perfect gift.
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  It would become one of the most profound acts of moral
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  leadership in American history.
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  A proclamation of thanksgiving written not from triumph,
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  but from turmoil.
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  SPEAKER_01: If you were to step back from the smoke of the battlefields in 1863,
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  SPEAKER_01: from the clash of armies and the clamor of politics,
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  SPEAKER_01: you would see something unexpected taking shape in the background.
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  The quiet persistence of a woman who had been knocking on the
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  door of history for
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  SPEAKER_01: nearly two decades.
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  SPEAKER_01: Her name was Sarah Josiah Hale.
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  Today,
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  she's best known for writing a simple children's rhyme,
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  Mary Had a Little Lamb.
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  SPEAKER_01: But in her own time,
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  SPEAKER_01: she was one of the most influential women in America,
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  SPEAKER_01: a writer,
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  SPEAKER_01: editor,
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  SPEAKER_01: and moral voice who helped shape the conscience of a nation through her
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  SPEAKER_01: publication,
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  SPEAKER_01: God Eyes Ladybook.
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  SPEAKER_01: From her editor's desk in Philadelphia,
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  SPEAKER_01: Hale had been calling for a national day of thanksgiving since the 1840s.
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  SPEAKER_01: She believed gratitude could heal a fractured people,
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  that the act of giving thanks together across states and
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  classes could remind
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  SPEAKER_01: Americans of their shared blessings and common destiny.
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  SPEAKER_01: At the time, Thanksgiving existed only in patches.
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  The Englanders celebrated faithful each autumn,
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  but elsewhere the holiday was sporadic.
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  One state might hold it in October,
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  another in December,
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  and many just ignored it entirely.
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  There was no unifying moment when the country stopped together
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  to give thanks.
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  SPEAKER_01: And for nearly 17 years,
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  SPEAKER_01: Sarah Hale wrote editorials,
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  SPEAKER_01: essays,
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  SPEAKER_01: and letters to governors and presidents alike,
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  SPEAKER_01: urging them to make Thanksgiving a national observance.
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  She pleaded with Zachary Taylor,
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  Millard Fillmore,
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  Franklin Pierce,
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  and James Buchanan.
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  SPEAKER_01: And every one of them ignored her.
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  SPEAKER_01: But Hale's theology of gratitude wouldn't let her quit.
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  SPEAKER_01: In her mind, Thanksgiving wasn't just about food or fellowship.
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  It was a moral act,
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  a discipline of humility that reminded people of their
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  dependence on God.
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  She wrote that a shared day of thanks would awaken in American
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  hearts the love of
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  SPEAKER_01: home and country,
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  SPEAKER_01: of thankfulness and peace.
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  SPEAKER_01: And when the Civil War erupted in 1861, her vision seemed impossible.
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  SPEAKER_01: How could a nation at war feast together?
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  How could divided families break bread while sons fought on
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  opposite sides of the battlefield?
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  SPEAKER_01: But Hill saw the war as the very reason Thanksgiving was needed.
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  She believed that gratitude could become the bridge between a
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  broken people and their creator.
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  That Thanksgiving could be the nation's repentance,
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  its reconsecration to God.
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  And so,
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  in September 1863,
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  she wrote one more letter,
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  this time to President Abraham Lincoln.
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  SPEAKER_01: By then,
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  SPEAKER_01: Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation,
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  SPEAKER_01: freeing enslaved people in Confederate-held territory.
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  SPEAKER_01: The Union had won major victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg,
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  SPEAKER_01: though at unspeakable costs,
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  SPEAKER_01: and the country was weary but not yet hopeless.
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  SPEAKER_01: When Hale's letter reached the White House, Lincoln read it carefully.
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  She proposed a single unifying day when the whole American
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  people may set apart and
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  SPEAKER_01: observe a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficial father.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was an audacious request that in the midst of the war,
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  SPEAKER_01: the president should call the divided nation,
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  SPEAKER_01: North and South,
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  SPEAKER_01: to give thanks together.
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  SPEAKER_01: But something in her words...
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  SPEAKER_01: struck him.
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  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps it was her appeal to unity,
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  SPEAKER_01: perhaps her confidence in divine providence,
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  SPEAKER_01: or perhaps,
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  SPEAKER_01: as some historians suggest,
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  SPEAKER_01: Lincoln's own faith,
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  SPEAKER_01: quiet but deepening through the war,
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  had reached a point of recognition that gratitude was not a
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  luxury for peace but a
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  SPEAKER_01: necessity in pain.
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  SPEAKER_01: He turned to his Secretary of State,
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  SPEAKER_01: William H.
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  SPEAKER_01: Seward,
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  SPEAKER_01: who shared his belief in the moral weight of the moment.
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  Together,
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  they began drafting what will become the National Thanksgiving
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  Proclamation.
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  SPEAKER_01: Think of the timing.
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  SPEAKER_01: October 3rd,
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  SPEAKER_01: 1863,
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  SPEAKER_01: just three months after the pain of Gettysburg,
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  SPEAKER_01: wounded soldiers still lay in field hospitals,
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  SPEAKER_01: while families still receive telegrams that began,
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  SPEAKER_01: "'We regret to inform you.'"
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  And in that season of ashes,
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  Abraham Lincoln picked up his pen to write about blessings.
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  SPEAKER_01: He didn't write from triumph.
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  SPEAKER_01: He wrote from brokenness.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that's maybe what makes the proclamation so extraordinary.
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  When Lincoln issued the call for a national Thanksgiving,
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  it was not a declaration of victory.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was a confession of faith.
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  SPEAKER_01: He believed that gratitude itself was redemption,
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  SPEAKER_01: that it could recalibrate the soul of a people who had forgotten God.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he wrote,
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  The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with
• 9:05
  the blessings of
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: fruitful fields and healthful skies.
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  And he reminded the nation that these were not the products of
• 9:13
  human genius or military might.
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  SPEAKER_00: The gracious gifts of the Most High God,
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  SPEAKER_00: who,
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  SPEAKER_00: while dealing with us in anger for our sins,
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  SPEAKER_00: hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
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  SPEAKER_01: And those last words,
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  SPEAKER_01: who have nevertheless remembered mercy,
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  SPEAKER_01: carry the weight of both scripture and the cultural experience.
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  Lincoln saw the civil war as both judgment and mercy,
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  punishment and providence intertwined.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the call for thanksgiving was not an escape from sorrow,
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  SPEAKER_01: it was an act of surrender to a higher sovereignty.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so,
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: from a White House surrounded by grief,
• 9:48
  Lincoln declared that the last Thursday of November would be a
• 9:50
  day of thanksgiving
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  SPEAKER_01: and praise to our beneficial Father who dwelleth in the heavens.
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  So the woman who wrote Mary Had a Little Lamb and the president
• 9:57
  who bore the
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: nation's suffering had together given birth to a holy day.
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  SPEAKER_01: Not a day of victory, but a day of gratitude.
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  On October 3rd,
• 10:05
  1863,
• 10:06
  Abraham Lincoln issued the Thanksgiving Proclamation.
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  SPEAKER_01: Its words are steeped in theology and providence.
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  The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with
• 10:16
  the blessings of
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: fruitful fields and healthful skies.
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  SPEAKER_00: To these bounties...
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  They are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the
• 10:25
  source from which they come.
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  No human counsel hath devised,
• 10:29
  nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.
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  SPEAKER_00: They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God.
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  SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
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  SPEAKER_01: In the middle of the war,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: with bodies still being buried in Gettysburg,
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  SPEAKER_01: Lincoln could see blessings.
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  SPEAKER_01: Fruitful fields, growing crops, healthful skies.
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  SPEAKER_01: He refused to see them as coincidence.
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  SPEAKER_01: He named them as gifts of God.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then he went even further.
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  SPEAKER_00: It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly,
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  SPEAKER_00: reverently,
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  and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by
• 11:04
  the whole American
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  SPEAKER_00: people.
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  SPEAKER_01: The language, solemn, reverently, gratefully.
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  SPEAKER_01: Thanksgiving for Lincoln wasn't about feasting or festivity,
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  SPEAKER_01: and it wasn't about the lions playing the cowboys.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was about worship.
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  It was a spiritual act,
• 11:17
  a moral obligation to acknowledge God as the giver of every
• 11:20
  good thing.
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  SPEAKER_01: And yet Lincoln also wove lament into the proclamation.
• 11:24
  They are nevertheless constantly disturbed by the civil war of
• 11:29
  unequaled magnitude
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: and severity,
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  SPEAKER_00: which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their
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  SPEAKER_00: aggression.
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  SPEAKER_01: Even here, his gratitude didn't deny grief.
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  SPEAKER_01: Thanksgiving was never escapism,
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  SPEAKER_01: it was defiance,
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  SPEAKER_01: choosing to seek God's gifts even in the valley of death.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Lincoln's proclamation reveals his deep wrestling with providence.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: He was no simplistic theologian.
• 11:51
  He rarely used the name Jesus Christ,
• 11:53
  but he often spoke of the Almighty or the Most High God.
• 11:56
  He saw history as guided by divine hands even when the guidance
• 11:59
  was painful.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: In fact,
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: in a later reflection,
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: his second inaugural address,
• 12:03
  he would describe the Civil War as God's judgment on a nation
• 12:06
  guilty of the sin of
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: slavery.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: But even in 1863,
• 12:09
  his Thanksgiving proclamation pointed to a theology where
• 12:12
  gratitude is an act of
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: humility.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because gratitude acknowledges dependence,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: requires unity,
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  SPEAKER_01: and gratitude lives alongside suffering.
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  SPEAKER_01: This was covenant language, not unlike the Puritans before him.
• 12:25
  The pilgrims saw themselves as bound to God by covenant in the
• 12:27
  wilderness.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Lincoln,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: in a wilderness of civil war,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: called America to renew gratitude as a covenant response to providence.
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  SPEAKER_01: And his proclamation, it didn't instantly heal the nation.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: The war raged for two more bloody years.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: But the holiday did stick.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Every year since 1863, presidents have issued Thanksgiving proclamations.
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  And in 1941,
• 12:47
  Congress fixed the holiday permanently on the fourth Thursday
• 12:50
  of November.
• 12:51
  It's remarkable that what began as a harvest festival among
• 12:54
  starving pilgrims,
• 12:55
  irregular practice for centuries became a national holiday
• 12:58
  because a grieving
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: president in wartime declared it.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: the very table Americans gather around today,
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: owes its existence to the theology of gratitude voiced in 1863.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks for listening to Theology Made.
• 13:12
  If you enjoyed this,
• 13:13
  please like it on whatever platform you are listening on.