To mark the Thanksgiving holiday, the Editorial Board offers excerpts from presidential Thanksgiving proclamations with our best wishes for everyone in Hampton Roads to enjoy this day with family and friends.
“One of the splendid events which shape man’s destiny occurred when a small band of people, believing in the essential sanctity of their own being, went in search of a land in which their individuality might be the highest national value, before any arbitrary limitation or duty placed upon some men by the whim or design of others. … these men and women — and those of the other early settlements — prevailed. And the settlers gathered to give thanks for God’s bounty, for the blessings of life itself, and for the freedom which they so cherished that no hardship could quench it. And now their heritage is ours. What they dared to imagine for this land came to pass. What they planted here prospered.”
— President Richard Nixon, Nov. 5, 1971.
“We have been brought with safety and honor through another year, and, through the generosity of nature, he has blessed us with resources whose potentiality in wealth is almost incalculable; we are at peace at home and abroad; the public health is good; we have been undisturbed by pestilences or great catastrophes; our harvests and our industries have been rich in productivity; our commerce spreads over the whole world, and labor has been well rewarded for its remunerative service.”
— President Calvin Coolidge, Oct. 26, 1925.
“It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year … He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while he has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, he has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions.”
— President Abraham Lincoln, Oct. 20, 1864.
“At this time of thanksgiving, may we express our deep appreciation of those forebears who, more than three centuries ago, celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day. Through their industry and courage, our nation was hewn from the virgin forest, and through their steadfastness and faith, the ideals of liberty and justice have become our cherished inheritance. May we lift up our hearts in special prayers of gratitude for the abundance of our endowments, both material and spiritual, for the preservation of our way of life, in its richness and fullness, and for the religious faith which has wielded such a beneficent influence upon our destiny. May we show our thanks for our own bounty by remembrance of those less fortunate, and may the spirit of this Thanksgiving season move us to share with them to alleviate their need.”
— President Dwight Eisenhower, Oct. 11, 1955.
“[W]e have especial occasion to express our hearty thanks to Almighty God that by his providence and guidance our government, established a century ago, has been enabled to fulfill the purpose of its founders in offering an asylum to the people of every race, securing civil and religious liberty to all within its borders, and meting out to every individual alike justice and equality before the law.”
— President Ulysses Grant, Oct. 26, 1876.
“We have abundant cause for thanksgiving. … The great army of freemen, which America sent to the defense of liberty, returning to the grateful embrace of the nation, has resumed the useful pursuits of peace, as simply and as promptly as it rushed to arms in obedience to the country’s call. … May we have vision to discern our duties; the strength, both of hand and resolve, to discharge them; and the soundness of heart to realize that the truest opportunities are those of service.”
— President Woodrow Wilson, Nov. 12, 1920.
