In the year which is now drawing to its end the art, the skill, and the
labor of the people of the United States have been employed with greater
diligence and vigor and on broader fields than ever before, and the
fruits of the earth have been gathered into the granary and the
storehouse in marvelous abundance. Our highways have been lengthened,
and new and prolific regions have been occupied. We are permitted to
hope that long-protracted political and sectional dissensions are at no
distant day to give place to returning harmony and fraternal affection
throughout the Republic. Many foreign states have entered into liberal
agreements with us, while nations which are far off and which heretofore
have been unsocial and exclusive have become our friends.
The annual period of rest, which we have reached in health and
tranquillity, and which is crowned with so many blessings, is by
universal consent a convenient and suitable one for cultivating personal
piety and practicing public devotion.
I therefore recommend that Thursday, the 26th day of November next, be
set apart and observed by all the people of the United States as a day
for public praise, thanksgiving, and prayer to the Almighty Creator and
Divine Ruler of the Universe, by whose ever-watchful, merciful, and
gracious providence alone states and nations, no less than families and
individual men, do live and move and have their being.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.
[SEAL.]
Done at the city of Washington, this 12th day of October, A.D. 1868,
and of the Independence of the United States the ninety-third.