Lincoln and Thanksgiving: The Origin of an American Holiday | 5 Minute Video — Transcript

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1. 0:01In Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1621, 53 men, women and children celebrated
2. 0:09their first harvest in the New World.
3. 0:11The great Indian chief, Massasoit, brought 90 of his men to the three-day party.
4. 0:16From all reports, a good time was had by all.
5. 0:20How did this event, which happened almost 400 years ago, become a part of the American
6. 0:26story and our oldest national tradition?
7. 0:30Credit goes to many people, but two stand out.
8. 0:33One you know, and one you should know: Abraham Lincoln and Sarah Josepha Hale.
9. 0:39More on both in a moment.
10. 0:41As a religious people, Americans have always had a keen sense they have been
11. 0:45blessed by Providence.
12. 0:47The pilgrims certainly felt this, and so did subsequent generations, including George Washington.
13. 0:53Washington was the first president to declare a national day of public thanksgiving
14. 0:58and praise.
15. 0:59But it wasn’t until the Civil War that the idea of a national Day of Thanksgiving
16. 1:03fully took hold.
17. 1:05In the autumn of 1863—at the height of the Civil War, when Americans were bitterly divided—
18. 1:12Abraham Lincoln nevertheless called for a day of national thanksgiving.
19. 1:18Lincoln began his proclamation this way: “The year that is drawing toward its close has
20. 1:23been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.”
21. 1:29It was an extraordinary way to characterize 1863—the bloodiest year of the war.
22. 1:35But even “in the midst of a civil war of unequaled severity and magnitude,” Lincoln
23. 1:40continued, the nation had much to be thankful for and much to look forward to.
24. 1:46The day was coming when America would again be united and experience, as Lincoln put it,
25. 1:52“a large increase of freedom.”
26. 1:54It was a profoundly hopeful message, reminding Americans of their nation's capacity for renewal.
27. 2:00Lincoln’s decision to call for a national Thanksgiving came at the urging of a far-sighted
28. 2:05and persistent magazine editor who believed such a celebration would have a “deep moral
29. 2:11influence” on the American character.
30. 2:13Her name was Sarah Josepha Hale.
31. 2:16More than any single person, she is the reason we celebrate Thanksgiving today.
32. 2:22By the 1840s, many states had established an annual day of thanksgiving,
33. 2:27but the date varied widely from state to state.
34. 2:30Hale saw the value of a day in which the entire nation celebrated as one.
35. 2:35For two decades, she conducted a campaign to consolidate public support for her idea.
36. 2:41As the influential editor of one of the most popular periodicals of the 19th century,
37. 2:46year after year she wrote columns making the case for the holiday; she published fiction and
38. 2:52poems with a Thanksgiving Day theme; and she offered her readers recipes for traditional
39. 2:57Thanksgiving dishes such as roast turkey and pumpkin pie.
40. 3:01And, by the way, she also wrote the nursery rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
41. 3:06Presidents Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, and Franklin Pierce, to whom she had written
42. 3:12letters, showed little interest in her cause.
43. 3:15But Lincoln saw its potential.
44. 3:18His proclamation was the first in what became an unbroken string of annual Thanksgiving
45. 3:24proclamations by every subsequent president.
46. 3:28Congress finally sealed the deal in 1941, when President Franklin Roosevelt signed legislation
47. 3:35making Thanksgiving an official national holiday.
48. 3:39Lincoln and Hale believed the act of expressing gratitude had tremendous healing power.
49. 3:45In his Thanksgiving proclamation, Lincoln spoke not as commander-in-chief of the Union
50. 3:51forces, but as president of the entire nation—North and South.
51. 3:57He made no reference to “rebels” or “enemies.”
52. 4:00Rather, the president spoke of “the whole American people.”
53. 4:05It’s a message that resonates today, when Americans, even within families, are divided
54. 4:10over issues of politics and culture.
55. 4:13Thanksgiving, our nation’s oldest tradition, brings us together just as it brought the
56. 4:19pilgrims and Indians together in 1621.
57. 4:23Lincoln said it best when he called on every American to celebrate Thanksgiving
58. 4:28“with one heart and one voice.”
59. 4:32Thanksgiving gives us a moment to focus on the blessings of being Americans, on the prosperity,
60. 4:38security and freedom we enjoy.
61. 4:41If Lincoln could focus on these blessings in the middle of the Civil War, we should
62. 4:45certainly be able to do so today.
63. 4:48Here’s a suggestion: at this year’s Thanksgiving table, ask everyone to spend a minute to say
64. 4:53what they are grateful for.
65. 4:55I suspect you’ll find your guests will have a long and eloquent list.
66. 4:59And if they don’t, you can help them out: suggest they start with family, friends, and
67. 5:04living in the freest country in the world.
68. 5:06After all, if we don’t give thanks, what’s the point of Thanksgiving?
69. 5:11I’m Melanie Kirkpatrick, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of Thanksgiving:
70. 5:16The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience, for Prager University.