This Day in History
This Day On Thanksgiving
By Madi O .
Abraham Lincoln , America ? s 16th President , is known for many things : his work in the fight to ? end slavery , his tragic assassination , his top hat . But one thing that many might not know is his ? proclamation for a day of Thanksgiving .?
On October 3 , 1863 , President Lincoln issued a Presidential Proclamation deeming , ? the last ? Thursday of November next , as a day of Thanksgiving .? Abraham Lincoln wrote in his proclamation that ? he believes that we , as humans , fail to acknowledge the One who gave us all of these beautiful things .?
However , Abraham Lincoln was not the originator of the idea of Thanksgiving . Sara Josepha Hale ? had been campaigning for a national day of thanks since 1846 , almost twenty years prior to
This Day in History
Lincoln ? s ? Proclamation . She had sent many letters to politicians , editors , and presidents trying to establish ? Thanksgiving as a national holiday . Lincoln took this letter that he received and turned it into ? Presidential Proclamation 106 . He believed , just as Hale did , that it would ? heal the wounds of the ? nation ? from the Civil War plaguing America at the time .?
Yet this was not the first proclamation of Thanksgiving Day by a president . George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government 74 years , to the day ,? before Lincoln ? s proclamation . Every
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