A PROCLAMATION by the President of the United States of America:
As no truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration, nor
any more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a
deep sense and a due acknowledgment of the governing providence of a
Supreme Being and of the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher
of hearts and righteous distributor of rewards and punishments are
conducive equally to the happiness and rectitude of individuals and to
the well-being of communities; as it is also most reasonable in itself
that men who are made capable of social acts and relations, who owe
their improvements to the social state, and who derive their enjoyments
from it, should, as a society, make their acknowledgments of dependence
and obligation to Him who hath endowed them with these capacities and
elevated them in the scale of existence by these distinctions;
As it is likewise a plain dictate of duty and a strong sentiment of
nature that in circumstances of great urgency and seasons of imminent
danger earnest and particular supplications should be made to Him who is
able to defend or to destroy; as, moreover, the most precious interests
of the people of the United States are still held in jeopardy by the
hostile designs and insidious acts of a foreign nation, as well as by
the dissemination among them of those principles, subversive of the
foundations of all religious, moral, and social obligations, that have
produced incalculable mischief and misery in other countries; and as, in
fine, the observance of special seasons for public religious solemnities
is happily calculated to aver the evils which we ought to deprecate and
to excite to the performance of the duties which we ought to discharge
by calling and fixing the attention of the people at large to the
momentous truths already recited, by affording opportunity to teach and
inculcate them by animating devotion and giving to it the character of a
national act :
For these reasons I have thought proper to recommend, and I do hereby
recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the 25th day of April next, be
observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn
humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain
as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the
sacred duties of religion in public and in private; that they 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 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; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that
impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to
Himself and so ruinous to mankind;
That He would make us deeply sensible that "righteousness exalteth
a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people"; that He would turn
us from our transgressions and turn His displeasure from us; that He
would withhold us from unreasonable discontent, from disunion, faction,
sedition, and insurrection; that He would preserve our country from the
desolating sword; that He would save our cities and towns from a
repetition of those awful pestilential visitations under which they have
lately suffered so severely, and that the health of our inhabitants
generally may be precious in His sight; that He would favor us with
fruitful seasons and so bless the labors of the husbandman as that there
may be food in abundance for man and beast; that He would prosper our
commerce, manufactures, and fisheries, and give success to the people in
all their lawful industry and enterprise;
That He would smile on our colleges, academies, schools, and seminaries
of learning, and make them nurseries of sound science, morals, and
religion; that He would bless all magistrates, from the highest to the
lowest, give them the true spirit of their station, make them a terror
to evil doers and a praise to them that do well; that He would preside
over the councils of the nation at this critical period, enlighten them
to a just discernment of the public interest, and save them from
mistake, division, and discord; that He would make succeed our
preparations for defense and bless our armaments by land and by sea;
that He would put an end to the effusion of human blood and the
accumulation of human misery among the contending nations of the earth
by disposing them to justice, to equity, to benevolence, and to peace;
and that he would extend the blessings of knowledge, of true liberty,
and of pure and undefiled religion throughout the world.
And I do also recommend that with these acts of humiliation, penitence,
and prayer, fervent thanksgiving to the Author of All Good be united for
the countless favors, which He is still continuing to the people of the
United States, and which render their condition as a nation eminently
happy when compared with the lot of others.
Given, etc.
JOHN ADAMS
Read 1799 Thanksgiving Proclamation, made by
John Adams, the national Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation in
1799.
Festivals : Thanksgiving :
Proclamations
: Presidential : Before Lincoln : 1799 Thanksgiving
Proclamation