Most contemporary Thanksgiving proclamations (from the 20th century
forward) have been relatively short — usually one-paragraph affairs which noted the custom of giving thanks to God and got on with it. George H.W. Bush’s Thanksgiving proclamations tended to be a bit longer and it is evident that he put some time into making them unique. They are often laced with citations, sometimes from American history, sometimes from scripture, and they stand out for the care with which they were conceived. Below, the text of President Bush’s first Thanksgiving proclamation in 1989.
On Thanksgiving Day, we Americans pause as a Nation to give thanks for the freedom and prosperity with which we have been blessed by our Creator. Like the pilgrims who first settled in this land, we offer praise to God for His goodness and generosity and rededicate ourselves to lives of service and virtue in His sight.
This annual observance of Thanksgiving was a cherished American tradition even before our first President, George Washington, issued the first Presidential Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789. In his first Inaugural Address, President Washington observed that “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States.” He noted that the American people – blessed with victory in their fight for Independence and with an abundance of crops in their fields – owed God “some return of pious gratitude.” Later, in a confidential note to his close advisor, James Madison, he asked “should the sense of the Senate be taken on … a day of Thanksgiving?” George Washington thus led the way to a Joint Resolution of Congress requesting the President to set aside “a day of public Thanksgiving and Prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal Favors of Almighty God.”
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