Post 4400 Thanksgiving Thoughts

On November 25, my United States will be celebrating Thanksgiving.  And today, I celebrate my blog's 4,400th post.  

But it seems there isn't much to celebrate.

The last almost two years have been a tremendous strain on us and our country, as it has been for everyone all over the world.

Our country may be on the brink of a Civil War.  I've thought for a long time that the American Civil War never truly ended. Now, as the days pass, it seems that we are headed to a brink that we won't be able to pull back from.

It won't be geographic this time, at least not in the way our Civil War of 1861-1865 was. Political divisions are already splitting families - and marriages - apart.

This is not a political post, so I am not going to get into details or express my opinions.

Rather, I want the Americans reading this to stop and think.

Today, I think of November 19, 1863 when our country was literally being torn apart by a Civil War.   Just in the three day Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), there were some 23,000 Union casualties and 28,000 Confederate casualties.

On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave a short speech at a battleground of the Civil War in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as part of a ceremony to dedicate a cemetery on the battle grounds.

It's short and to the point.  Some people think it's one of the greatest speeches in American history.

Prior to that, in October of 1863, Lincoln had also signed a Proclamation of a particular Thanksgiving which had a large religious component.

It's humbling, reading these words below that were written in the midst of a war that killed some 750,000. Americans.  Note that some authorities think the total casualties, which include injuries, might have been in excess of 1,500,000.

At the time of the 1860 census, our population was about 31,443,000, which included about 3,953,762 enslaved individuals.  Our population now is about 331,400,000.

What do we think a modern Civil War would do to us?

Perhaps we should reflect on Lincoln's words (red for the Gettysburg address, blue for the Thanksgiving Proclamation) this year at Thanksgiving.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.


By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, 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. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony 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 Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

What can we do to make things better, this coming Thanksgiving? 

Our children and their childrens's freedoms depend on it.