The Proclamation of Thanksgiving set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving.
The holiday we know today as Thanksgiving was recommended to Lincoln by Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent magazine editor. Her letters to Lincoln urged him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” The document sets apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.”
According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln’s secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William H. Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On Oct. 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary that he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.
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