January 11, 2010

Lincoln's Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day

Washington, D. C.
March 30, 1863

Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter married President Lincoln's
son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863.
The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of
prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by
Lincoln on March 30.

By the President of the United States of America.

Abraham Lincoln

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the
Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the
affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the
President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and
humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their
dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and
transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine
repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime
truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that
those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like
individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this
world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war,
which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon
us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national
reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the
choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years,
in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as
no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have
forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied
and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the
deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by
some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken
success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of
redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made
us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to
confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in
the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and
set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national
humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People
to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to
unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective
homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble
discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in
the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the
Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than
the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided
and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington,
this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight
hundred and sixty-three,
and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

--By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward, Secretary of State.