A Nation Blessed- NYT Editorial

DON FISHER - CESAR L. LAURE/AP

An amazing bounty. In the autumn of 1621, the pilgrims of the nascent Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, along with scores of Native Americans, gathered to celebrate a successful harvest with a feast that was to be considered this nation’s first Thanksgiving. In the words of the governor of the colony, William Bradford:

“They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion.

“All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.”

Here was the start of the enduring sense, through war and peace, Depression and prosperity, that we in the land that became the United States of America have so very much to be thankful for. The Continental Congress, for several Decembers in the 1700s, did proclaim a Thanksgiving Day, and George Washington did so in November 1789, but it was not until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that Abraham Lincoln declared an annual national observation, thanks primarily to a 15-year campaign for same waged by one Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

While acknowledging the nation’s sufferings, Lincoln took note of America’s vast abundances and said: “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 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.”

Though the date changes from year to year, the purpose does not. Give thanks to whatever God in whom you believe, if you believe, for, despite our travails and differences, this nation is and has been truly blessed. May it ever be so.