Below is George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. The next time someone tells you that politicians shouldn't talk about religion, or the "Almighty God", just show them this:

Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation:

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our sasety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington


I found this proclamation on the University of Florida Libraries' website:

http://grove.ufl.edu/~leo/washington.html

After you read Washington's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation on this library website, check out the bottom line that the University of Florida added. How PC. Of course.

Pardon my ignorance, but I am a foreign student in the US, and I do not know much about the history of Thanksgiving Day. The other day I talked to some American friends about the origins of Thanksgiving, and I told them that I thought Thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which men showed their gratitude towards God. They gave me a weird look when I said this, and responded by saying that it originated from the first Pilgrims who celebrated a great harvest. So what is the truth? This speech from George Washington seems to support what I had always thought, but I was surprised to hear the response from American citizens themselves.
Thank you and God bless you.

Your assumption that Thanksgiving is a religious holiday is correct, it is. Most Americans have been taught otherwise for years. It is all in an effort to make Americans forget their Judeo-Christian heritage. This vocal minority hopes to make us a secular nation by eliminating all references to religion. The founders did not want freedom from religion. Rather, they wanted to avoid a Church of England scenario here in America, with one denomination having all the power. That is why they gave us freedom of religion, not because they wanted us to be a secular nation void of all religion, but because they did not want a Church of America. The Pilgrims left England for that reason, they faced persecution. Now in America, Christians face it in schools. I hope this helps and I hope that you have thus far enjoyed yourself in our nation. Best of luck.

quote:

Originally posted by Francisco:
Below is George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. The next time someone tells you that politicians shouldn't talk about religion, or the "Almighty God", just show them this

All it proves is that George Washington didn't understand the Constitution very well or that he did not acknowledge the absolute and exclusive authority of Christ over the the things that belong to God and had no respect for the Separation of Church and State ordained by the Savior in Matthew 22:21.

When President James Madison's religious proclamations during the War of 1812 did nothing but "rekindle political hate", Congress realized that mixing relgion and government was a violation of divine law as well as the Constitution. After Madison's presidency, Congress refused to pass resolutions requesting executive religious recommendations and no President even came close to issuing one until Lincoln foolishly trespassed on the jurisdiction of God who responded by pouring out his wrath upon the nation.

One of the little known facts about the role of religion in early American holiday proclamations is the existence of national jeremiads.

No discussion of the early Thanksgivings of Washington is complete without mentioning the fast days as well.

Days of national fasting and mourning were the counterpart to the general day of thanksgiving. Theologically, we can see how this makes sense for Christian nations. One gives thanks to God for His saving power. Man also regrets and mourns his own failings before God.

For information on why we don't have days of national repenting, anymore, see this truly excellent article on the death of the jeremiad during the administration of John Adams. For those who enjoyed Russell Kirk's portrayal of the man some consider a fjeather of American conservatism, might like this additional background.


Charles Ellis Dickson, Jeremiads in the New American Republic: The Case of National Fasts in the John Adams Administration. The New England Quarterly, June 1987. I offer below quotes from that work unless otherwise cited. (By the way, it would be good if the site would let me upload a pdf of the document.)

Here are some notes on that fast:
“During Adams’s four years as president, this man of strong principles openly expressed a Puritan-style awareness of individual and national sins rarely noted publicly by his successors. He did was his Virginia-born predecessor had not thought to do and issued two New England-style proclamations appointing days of ‘solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer.’ On 23 March 1798 he recommended that on Wednesday, 9 May 1798, his countrymen ‘acknowledge before God the manifold sins and transgressions with which we are justly charged as individuals and as a nation’; a year later (6 March 1799) he recommended that on Thursday, 25 April, Americans ‘call to mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and [pray] that through the grace of His Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come.’ P. 188---- James D. Richardson, ed. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1908, 11 vols, (n.p.: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1908), 1:268-70, 1:284-86.

“Whether the jeremiads delivered on the occasion of his two fast days were simply outworn colonial traditions or unacceptable national innovations, they fanned the flames of American political discontent and helped make Adams a one-term president. 188-189

On 12 June 1775 the First Continental Congress echoed the familiar New England penitential tone in a proclamation drafted by a committee including John Adams. This proto-national fast, held on 20 July 1775, set the precedent for confessional fast days which Congress continued to declare every spring throughout the Revolutionary War. 190

By the time of the American Revolution, this “wonderful fusion of political doctrine with the traditiona rite of self-abasement…had become…a dynamo for generation action” [quote from Peter Oliver’s Origin & Progress of the American Rebellion: A Tory View, ed. Douglass Adair and John A. Schutz (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1963),


Since the Continental Congress issued no further religious proclamations in the post-Revolutionary period and since the new federal Constitution recognized no formal connection between government and God, it took a request by a joint committee of the First Congress to persuade George Washington on 3 November 1789 to appoint Thursday, 26 November 1789, a day of thanksgiving and to urge his countrymen, without elaboration, to beseech Almighty God on that day to pardon the nation. Washington’s next proclamation was not issued until almost sic years later…. Neither of Washington’s religious proclamations appointed a true New England-style fast, and the second one contained no penitential language at all.
191-192

He [Adams] ‘despised and detested’ Hamilton’s letter, which ‘recommended a national fast, not only on account of the intrinsic propriety of it, but because we should be very unskillful if we neglected to avail ourselves of the religious feelings of the people in a crisis so difficult and dangerous.” Correspondence from the Boston Patriot (1809), Works of Adams, 9:289-91 ---p.193

The fasts were not well-received; in fact, many viewed this act as a partisan trick:

“…in Perry Miller’s words, ‘Federalist plots to ensnare Republicans into praying for John Adams….[Miller, “Covenant to Revival,” p. 357]…In Philadelphia on the evening of Adams’s first national fast day, thousands of people took to the streets. …Pennsylvania Governor Thomas Mifflin had to order out a patrol of horse and foot soldiers to preserve that peace. The mood of the crowd around Adams’s house was so ugly that some of his servants feared for his life. Writing to Thomas Jefferson years later, after the two former presidents had been reconciled, Adams revealed that he still had not completely forgiven Jefferson and his party for the events that night in Philadelphia, which had occurred when ‘I have no doubt you were fast asleep, in philosophical tranquility!’” Adams to Jefferson, 30 June 1813, in Works of Adams, 10:46-49—p196

The article contains many more great historical goodies on the fast; I commend this article and hope it whets the appetite for more knowledge on Adams and fast days.

All this begs the question:
Would a president today ever have the courage to proclaim a fast day?