Happy Thanksgiving

Ten years ago, on his change.gov website, Obama released a message stating:

"Nearly 150 years ago, in one of the darkest years of our nation's history, President Abraham Lincoln set aside the last Thursday in November as a day of Thanksgiving. America was split by Civil War. But Lincoln said in his first Thanksgiving decree that difficult times made it even more appropriate for our blessings to be -- and I quote -- "gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people."

First of all, Lincoln's first Thanksgiving decree does not contain that phrase. It is his second. And Lincoln did not establish the Thanksgiving holiday.

Actually, here is the Proclamation by Franklin Roosevelt that made Thanksgiving an official American holiday, a tradition that actually started with the Presidency of George Washington.

Official proclamation making Thanksgiving a national holiday.



This is an image of the George Washington Thanksgiving proclamation, setting it as Thursday, November 26th.



So the first Thanksgiving decree was actually many years prior to Abe Lincoln. And the official American holiday was actually established many years after Lincoln in 1941.

While it is true that Lincoln established in 1863 a "national day of Thanksgiving", it was only for that year (ie. "November next"), not future years. As I mentioned, Lincoln also established August 6th of that year as a "national day of Thanksgiving".

He was following a long-standing tradition of Thanksgiving proclamations.