November 27, 2024 (Wednesday) Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday…but not for the reasons we generally remember. The Pilgrims and the Wampanoags did indeed share a harvest celebration together at Plymouth in fall 1621, but that moment got forgotten almost immediately, overwritten by the long history of the settlers’ attacks on their Indigenous neighbors. In 1841 a book that reprinted the early diaries and letters from the Plymouth colony recovered the story of that three-day celebration in which ninety Indigenous Americans and the English settlers shared fowl and deer. This story of peace and goodwill among men who by the 1840s were more often enemies than not inspired Sarah Josepha Hale, who edited the popular women’s magazine Godey’s Lady's Book, to think that a national celebration could ease similar tensions building between the slave-holding South and the free North. She lobbied for legislation to establish a day of national thanksgiving. And then, on April 12, 1861, southern soldiers fired on Fort Sumter, a federal fort in Charleston Harbor, and the meaning of a holiday for giving thanks changed. Southern leaders wanted to destroy the United States of America and create their own country, based not in the traditional American idea that “all men are created equal,” but rather in its opposite: that some men were better than others and had the right to enslave their neighbors. In the 1850s, convinced that society worked best if a few wealthy men ran it, southern leaders had bent the laws of the United States to their benefit, using it to protect enslavement above all. In 1860, northerners elected Abraham Lincoln to the presidency to stop rich southern enslavers from taking over the government and using it to cement their own wealth and power. As soon as he was elected, southern leaders pulled their states out of the Union to set up their own country. After the firing on Fort Sumter, Lincoln and the fledgling Republican Party set out to end the slaveholders’ rebellion. The early years of the war did not go well for the U.S. By the end of 1862, the armies still held, but people on the home front were losing faith. Leaders recognized the need both to acknowledge the suffering and to keep Americans loyal to the cause. In November and December, seventeen state governors declared state thanksgiving holidays. New York governor Edwin Morgan’s widely reprinted proclamation about the holiday reflected that the previous year “is numbered among the dark periods of history, and its sorrowful records are graven on many hearthstones.” But this was nonetheless a time for giving thanks, he wrote, because “the precious blood shed in the cause of our country will hallow and strengthen our love and our reverence for it and its institutions…. Our Government and institutions placed in jeopardy have brought us to a more just appreciation of their value.” The next year, Lincoln got ahead of the state proclamations. On July 15 he declared a national day of Thanksgiving, and the relief in his proclamation was almost palpable. After two years of disasters, the Union army was finally winning. Bloody, yes; battered, yes; but winning. At Gettysburg in early July, Union troops had sent Confederates reeling back southward. Then, on July 4, Vicksburg had finally fallen to U. S. Grant’s army. The military tide was turning. President Lincoln set Thursday, August 6, 1863, for the national day of Thanksgiving. On that day, ministers across the country listed the signal victories of the U.S. Army and Navy in the past year and reassured their congregations that it was only a matter of time until the United States government put down the southern rebellion. Their predictions acknowledged the dead and reinforced the idea that their sacrifice had not been in vain. In October 1863, President Lincoln declared a second national day of Thanksgiving. In the past year, he declared, the nation had been blessed. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, he wrote, Americans had maintained their laws and their institutions and had kept foreign countries from meddling with their nation. They had paid for the war as they went, refusing to permit the destruction to wreck the economy. Instead, as they funded the war, they had also advanced farming, industry, mining, and shipping. Immigrants had poured into the country to replace men lost on the battlefield, and the economy was booming. And Lincoln had recently promised that the government would end slavery once and for all. The country, he predicted, “with a large increase of freedom,” would survive, stronger and more prosperous than ever. The president invited Americans “in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands” to observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving. In 1863, November’s last Thursday fell on the 26th. On November 19, Lincoln delivered an address at the dedication of a national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He reached back to the Declaration of Independence for the principles on which he called for Americans to rebuild the severed nation: ”Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Lincoln urged the crowd to take up the torch those who fought at Gettysburg had laid down. He called for them to “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” The following year, Lincoln proclaimed another day of Thanksgiving, this time congratulating Americans that God had favored them not only with immigration but also with the emancipation of formerly enslaved people. “Moreover,” Lincoln wrote, “He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions.” In 1861, Americans went to war to keep a cabal from taking control of the government and turning it into an oligarchy. The fight against that rebellion seemed at first to be too much for the nation to survive. But Americans rallied and threw their hearts into the cause on the battlefields even as they continued to work on the home front for a government that defended democracy and equality before the law. And in 1865, at least, they won. Happy Thanksgiving.
Richardson does write a nice piece but is a little too DNC oriented for my tastes. Which today run towards turkey, veggies, pie and the Detroit Lions.
Thank you for being kind. According to Josie, no one reads these. Others say they are too long. I enjoy it when she links past history to more recent events. I'll keep posting just to amuse myself! Jean
EO says too long as well as Janet. C'mon Jean. Dems might read them but there are not enough people here to get anything of value from post after post from one journalist or whatever she labels herself. Sources are all far left wing so no conservative will even click on those links. But have fun. I know how to make them invisible on my feed so no problem. Happy Thanksgiving!
There is a school of thought that says in order to understand the complicated issues we face today it is necessary to read long pieces. Sound bites are great if one has already made up one's mind but they will not lead to any real understanding. Richardson, who is an historian not a journalist, is good at tying the past in with the present.
Critical thinking? Yep. It does not apply to article after article from the same person Trump bashing. Ms, Richardson may be using critical thinking according to her own beliefs. When motives are selfish, the author may be trying to manipulate their ideas to instill in others. Critical thinking is necessary if you want to understand the Constitution as our forefathers wrote it, not for criticizing someone you don't agree with politically. Sound bites work fine for that.
Face it, you don’t shit about the Constitution after the words We the People. If you knew anything about the Constitution you would know the separation of church and state is in the body of the Constitution. Googling the answer is not Constitutional knowledge, just laziness. As usual with Trump supporters, if you disagree with the dimwitted leader you have TDS, are a communist, Marxist, hate America or a far left lunatic. How long will it take before you realize this guy is a drooling idiot who knows nothing other than grifting. Kudos to Gibson guitar company for the cease and desist letter to Trump and his over priced shitty made in China guitars. Although a Fender man myself, Gibson guitars are top quality products, something scrotum face would never understand.
As usual you are correct Almighty King of the Earth. You forgot the word "Orange". Isn't "orange" one of the only words in the English language that there is no rhyme?
Still looking for that separation of church and state in the Constitution. I learned about it in 8th grade.
Interesting data: 29.8% of high school coaches teach social studies, second only to coaches who teach PE (36.1%). The hours they have to devote to their coaching responsibilities takes away from their teaching duties. Might be why some students aren't proficient in history, geography, civics, and government.
Also, they don’t have the money to hire social studies teachers because the football team, basketball team and baseball team need new uniforms and equipment. I saw it during my HS years. Explains why AZ is 47 or48 in education in the country.
