The Continental Congress issued several ‘national days of prayer, humiliation, and thanksgiving’... a practice continued by Washington and Adams under the constitution. This proclamation was published in “The Independent Gazetteer” on November 5, 1782.
“… Do hereby recommend it to the inhabitants of these States
in general, to observe and request the several states to interpose their
authority, in appointing and commanding the observation of THURSDAY the
TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY OF NOVEMBER next as a day of SOLEMN THANKSGIVING to GOD for
all His mercies; and they do further recommend to all ranks to testify their
gratitude to God for His goodness by a cheerful obedience to His laws and by
promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and
undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and
national happiness…”
George Washington, now serving as the first President of the
United States, took Congress’s recommendation to call for a National Day of Thanksgiving and prayer in gratitude for the end of the Revolutionary War.
Washington observed the holiday by attending church and then donating money and
food to prisoners and debtors in New York City jails.
President Abraham Lincoln followed up during the Civil War
celebrating National Thanksgiving Day on the final Thursday 26 Nov 1863 which
was written up in a document by his Secretary of State William H. Seward. “…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…”
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