I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens . . . to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

This line comes from Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation, issued during the American Civil War. In the midst of national crisis, Lincoln sought to encourage unity and moral reflection by calling for a shared day of gratitude. The proclamation—drafted in part with input from Secretary of State William H. Seward—helped establish a regular, nationwide observance of Thanksgiving by designating the last Thursday in November. Lincoln frames the holiday as both civic and religious: a collective pause to acknowledge blessings that persisted despite war, and to offer “Thanksgiving and Praise” to God while also implicitly urging humility, repentance, and care for those suffering.

Lincoln’s invitation blends public policy with spiritual language, presenting gratitude as a civic virtue capable of binding a fractured nation. By addressing “fellow citizens,” he casts Thanksgiving as a unifying national ritual rather than a regional custom. The phrase “beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens” emphasizes providence: blessings are not merely the product of human effort but gifts that warrant acknowledgment and restraint. In context, the proclamation also functions as moral instruction—gratitude is paired with praise and, elsewhere in the document, with appeals to penitence and compassion—suggesting that national renewal requires both thankfulness and ethical responsibility amid suffering.