By MARSHA
MERCER
Thanksgiving, now deeply entrenched in modern American
life, got off to a shaky start.
Yes,
there were prayers of thanksgiving in Virginia and harvest feasting in
Massachusetts in the 17th century. But the first Congress squabbled
over even asking the president to issue a thanksgiving proclamation.
In
September 1789, a representative from New Jersey proposed that a committee from
the House and Senate visit President George Washington and ask him to recommend
to the people a day giving thanks for the many favors of Almighty God,
especially the “opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their
safety and happiness.”
Two
representatives from South Carolina objected -- one to the “mimicking of
European customs, where they made a mere mockery of thanksgivings” and the
other to interfering in matters beyond the proper scope of Congress, according
to an account in The Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia.
“Why
should the president direct the people to do what, perhaps, they have no mind
to do?” asked Thomas Tudor Tucker of South Carolina. “They may not be inclined
to return thanks for a Constitution until they have experienced that it
promotes their safety and happiness.”
Besides, said
Tucker, Congress had no business getting involved in religion, and, he added, “If
a day of thanksgiving must take place, let it be done by the authority of the
several states.”
Despite the
opposition, the resolution passed, and a committee did visit Washington, who issued
a proclamation naming Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, a day to unite in “sincere and
humble thanks.”
Citizens
and churches took to the first Thanksgiving, but the observance wasn’t set in
November. Washington later proclaimed Feb. 19, 1795, a “day of public thanksgiving
and prayer.”
The second president, John Adams, issued proclamations for May 9,
1798, and April 25, 1799, but they weren’t officially for thanksgiving. We’d
never recognize our feast-football-shop extravaganza in Adams’ day of “solemn
humiliation, fasting and prayer.”
But when Thomas
Jefferson became president, the proclamations of prayer or thanksgiving ceased.
For eight years, he refused to issue any on the ground that it would have infringed
on the separation of church and state.
During
the War of 1812, Congress asked President James Madison to declare a day of “public
humiliation and fasting and prayer to Almighty God for the safety and welfare
of these States,” and he chose Jan. 12, 1815. A few months later, Madison named
the second Thursday in April 1815 as a day of thanksgiving for the blessing of
peace.
After
that, no president until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of
thanksgiving.
Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States called
for a day of fasting and humiliation in 1861 “in view of impending conflict,”
and Lincoln proclaimed three days of thanksgiving for battle victories in 1862
and 1863.
For
the national Thanksgiving holiday, we can thank Sarah Josepha Hale, an author
and editor of Godey’s Lady Book magazine who campaigned tirelessly. By the 1850s, she had successfully lobbied more than 30 states
and territories to put Thanksgiving on their calendars. Her goal, though, was a
national holiday, which she believed would unify the country.
With
the nation torn apart by Civil War, Hale wrote
Lincoln on Sept. 28, 1863, asking him to use his executive authority to give
Thanksgiving national recognition “to become permanently an American custom and
institution.”
Days
later, on Oct. 3, Lincoln signed a proclamation, actually written by Secretary
of State William Seward, that the last Thursday of November would be “a day of
thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”
Thanksgiving
became our holiday on the last Thursday of November, not by law but by
tradition.
But
in 1939, when the last Thursday fell on Nov. 30, with just 24 days before
Christmas, retailers begged Franklin D. Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving up a
week to lengthen the Christmas shopping season.
FDR
proclaimed Thanksgiving to be on Nov. 23. His edict applied only to the
District of Columbia and federal workers, but angry letters poured into the
White House.
Sixteen
states refused to accept the change. Two Thanksgivings were celebrated until
1941, when Congress stepped in.
A
representative from Michigan declared that only Congress could change the date,
“not the fancy or whim of any president.”
Congress
set the federal holiday as the fourth Thursday in November. It may be one of
the few things for which we all can be thankful.
©2014
Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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