1789 Thanksgiving proclamation

[Guest 2HOW]

George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving 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 favor; 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 public thanksgiving 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 26th 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 safety 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 favors 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 public 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 shown kindness to 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 3d day of October, A.D. 1789

[MacGyver]

How times have changed since 1789. Imagine that being read today.

I found this article in the WSJ a couple weeks ago pretty meaningful:

No, Virginia, Christmas Is Not Here Yet

• By ERIC FELTEN
  

The autumn leaves, red and yellow and brown, are tumbling from the trees, resigned to their fate. Weekends are full of football and the scritching of rakes. Lazy squirrels are still munching on moldering jack o' lanterns left over from Halloween. In other words, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Disney released a new version of the Dickens Scrooge story last week, timing it so that "A Christmas Carol" will be lucky to be in distribution past Thanksgiving Day.

Starbucks has already retired its white cups for the duration, replacing them with cranberry-colored, snowflake-flecked seasonal substitutes. Wal-Mart is just one of the retailers already Kringling away like crazy, running television ads with Andy Williams crooning "It's the most wonderful time of the year!" Who knew that the weeks between Halloween and Thanksgiving were the hap-happiest season of all?

The day after Thanksgiving used to be the official launch of the commercial Christmas season. Now Sears is running "Black Friday" specials all through November.

Given half a chance, retailers would probably try to get their plastic garlands hung just after Labor Day. (Ho-ho-ho, it's back to school!) But we've been spared that particular encroachment, thanks to a holiday that has proved capable of standing athwart the relentless forces of Christmas-creep—Halloween. Once a quaint bit of Americana built around the simple pleasures of costumes, candy-grabbing and petty vandalism, Halloween has become a marketable and profitable holiday, putting many official holidays to shame. If only Presidents Day had some sort of free-candy angle.

In contrast to Halloween's stalwart ability to keep Christmas from jumping the queue, Thanksgiving has lost its cultural muscle. The early advent of the Santa season may have less to do with the red-and-green imperative than with the weakness of Turkey Day. What happened to this quintessential American holiday?

Lydia Maria Child's ode to going over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house is a good place to start in decoding Thanksgiving's decline. First, there is the anachronistic attention given to grandmother. Thanksgiving is one of the few occasions left, in our fanatically kinder-centric culture, to honor the elderly. Picture the famous Norman Rockwell illustration "Freedom From Want"—at the Thanksgiving table grandpa and grandma have pride of place. No wonder the day gets short shrift.

And then there is all that over-the-river-and-through-the-woods business, which in our day means a choice between stripping for the nice TSA agent or creeping along I-95. Thanksgiving is the official holiday of planes, trains and automobiles. What the modern travel experience lacks in charm it makes up for with sheer ordeal. And what's the payoff for all this effort? A chance to make small talk with in-laws.

The Food Network may be the only institution in America unapologetically boosting the holiday. For weeks, the cable channel's programming is packed with turkey tutorials, stuffing suggestions and investigations into the mysteries of cranberry sauce. But Food Network's programming is less an indication of popular enthusiasm for Thanksgiving than a measure of the fear the holiday engenders. Hostesses know that they will be judged on the juiciness of their turkey, the cooking of which is an exotic undertaking chanced but once a year. And the result must be achieved while juggling a half-dozen side dishes, all the while making the above-mentioned small talk.

None of which would be so daunting if the day meant more to us. Could it be we've lost our capacity for gratitude? A successful harvest occasioned thanks back when it was all that stood between us and a long, cold, hungry winter. But now we're divorced from the seasonal rhythms of the farm, where the harvest is celebrated as the payoff of all the year's labors. Even in the midst of this Great Repression we enjoy perpetual plenty. What resonance does a cornucopia have to people who have come to expect ripe blackberries in February? If anything, we should be more grateful, but that's not our nature. Anything we struggle for, we hold dear; anything that comes easy, we take for granted.

Not only don't we celebrate the astonishing abundance that is our good fortune, we whine and moan about how it makes us fat. Lydia Maria Child's poem ends, appropriately enough, with dessert: "Is the pudding done? / Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!" A version for our time would read, "Is the pudding sugar-free?" And if that weren't enough to squeeze the pleasure from the day, no modern Thanksgiving is complete without a college student home from school, lecturing the family on the cruelty of meat. (To which the only appropriate response is: "Does that mean you don't want the drumstick?") That same sophomore is also likely to bemoan the grim fate of the Native Americans who made the strategic mistake of helping the Pilgrims avoid starvation. In some circles, Thanksgiving is second only to Columbus Day as an occasion for grieving.

There will be plenty of time next month for all the secular manifestations of Christmas: shopping, trimming the tree, shopping, mugs of frothing Tom & Jerry, shopping, and watching Ralphie get his Red Ryder BB-gun and Clarence get his wings. Oh, and yes, shopping. But before we break out the ornaments and dust off the Vince Guaraldi soundtrack, let's make the most of autumn and its particular pleasures. Jump in a pile of leaves. Savor the waning daylight. And go ahead. Week after next, eat that second slice of pumpkin pie—just be thankful for it.