History-American

Why are certain basic economic proposition known to everyone but Democratic (and unacceptably many Republican) politicians? Here is Alexander Hamilton, writing more than two hundred years ago about the usefulness and limitations of consumption taxes. His warnings about the deleterious economic effects of such taxes apply to other taxes, as well.

“It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, ‘in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four.’ If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.”

Each Thanksgiving, the Wall Street Journal publishes two editorials. The first, The Desolate Wilderness, is an account of the travel of the Pilgrims from England, via Leyden in the Netherlands, to America in their search for a place to establish their “City from God” apart from the (from their perspective) corruption and oppression of their place of birth.

The second, And the Fair Land, celebrates the great fortune that has come to their successors, and to those who followed them to this new land, for which all of us should give thanks.

Another Thanksgiving Proclamation, the first for the new United States, was made by the Continental Congress in 1777 to celebrate the military success that ended what was for the Americans the darkest year of the Revolutionary War and turned the direction of history in their favor. Here is another perspective about that event. As an aside, the Congress’ failure to recognize the military talent of Benedict Arnold and his contribution to the success at Saratoga caused Arnold to switch sides. Instead, as the article relates, Congress rewarded the incompetent, but politically popular and well-connected, Horatio (”Grandma,” as he was called by his detractors) Gates. Gates continued to be a problem for Washington. For example, he appears to have been connected to the Newburgh, N.Y., plotting against Congress by unpaid Continental Army officers at the end of the Revolutionary War.

Thanksgiving is emerging as a sort-of-secular alternative to Christmas. The latter holiday, despite its crass and at times repulsive commercialization, still retains that reminder of Christ, the mere mention of which gives secularists anxiety attacks and causes atheists to reach for unholy water and to uncross themselves. Today’s Thanksgiving knows not Jew or Gentile, Roman or Greek, atheist or believer, Republican or Democrat, Darwinist or Creationist, or any other division except perhaps between vegans and people who eat all foods for which the human dental structure was designed. It becomes, then, the perfect pseudo-reverential holiday that can unite us all in a civic celebration similar to the pro forma celebrations of civic religion in pre-Christian Greek cities. In fact, it differs from the holiday of my childhood, when Thanksgiving occupied a decidedly less exalted position than Christmas. Such is the cost of the increasingly aggressive and uncompromising, but successful, secularist program to drive meaningful and robust religion from the public square into the shadows of the private domain.

But before Thanksgiving becomes identified solely with its modern character, Americans need to remind themselves of the holiday’s historical origins as an unabashedly religious celebration. To that end, I am posting George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789, the first for the nation under the new Constitution. The following post contains Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation in the difficult, but decisive war year, 1863. Note the strong religious tones and similar appeals of both, connecting the moral standing of the country, along with its fate, to the guidance of the Almighty. This is not unexpected from Lincoln, who often wrote in a fervid and soaring, yet still elegant, style. But the imagery is equally vivid in the words of the usually rhetorically more plain-spoken and reserved Washington. 

George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789 

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

Proclamation of Thanksgiving
by the President of the United States of America
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

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 one 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. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[Signed]
A. Lincoln

Posting’s been a bit slower, as I try to finish grading a set of exams. In the meantime, here’s something different. One of the historical figures that I discuss in my constitutional law courses is Alexander Hamilton. It would be difficult to overstate Hamilton’s importance in American history. There are his military contributions as aide-de-camp and line officer for General Washington, including his bravery at the decisive battle of Yorktown against General Lord Cornwallis’s redcoats. His political involvement and intrigues in the new Confederation government, including his rumored participation in the Newburgh plot by disaffected officers of the Continental Army, which was put down by personal appeal from General Washington. His contributions to constitutional change through, initially, the Annapolis Convention in 1786 and then, the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, especially his authorship of most of The Federalist Papers in support of the Constitution during the New York and Virginia ratifying conventions. One of those papers presents the argument for a strong judiciary and a defense of constitutional judicial review echoed in the Supreme Court’s Marbury v. Madison decision. His creation of a sound American financial structure in the early 1790s through his three reports on The Debt, Banking, and Manufactures, the constitutional arguments for which were replicated in the Supreme Court’s McCulloch v. Maryland decision. His construction of a broad constitutional theory of executive power to influence George Washington in his proclamation of American neutrality in the naval war between the French Republic and Great Britain, a position eagerly followed by Abraham Lincoln and successive administrations since.

In addition to his historical pre-eminence, Hamilton’s personal story is so compelling as to be almost unbelievable. His illegitimate birth in the West Indies. The early death of his father. The early strength of his intellect so apparent to others in his community that they sent him to New York to study at King’s College (Columbia). His wealth as a successful New York lawyer. His rise to power as leader of the Federalist Party and downstate New York politics. His personal scandals, including his adulterous relationship with a woman whose husband tried to extort money from him. His political machinations in moving the deadlocked vote in the House of Representatives in the election for President in 1800 in favor of Thomas Jefferson and against his old political rival from the upstate New York political machine, Aaron Burr. His eventual duel with, and death at the hands of, that same Aaron Burr in 1804.

A fascinating, brilliant, yet very flawed man. Below is a rap performance about the first part of Hamilton’s life. It’s not exactly what one expects from a rapper, especially when the rap is accompanied musically by—a piano. But, then, the rap was at the White House in front of an audience that includes the rapper-in-chief who likes to dress in white shirt and chinos, not exactly “keeping it real” ‘hood attire.

My excitement rose when I saw the part of the headline, “There’s No Washington, D.C.” For a brief moment I envisioned life wthout the multi-trillion dollar federal government. Alas, it was only a reference to the proper geographical designation of that acreage that remains of the original cession by Maryland and Virginia for the construction of a national capital.

I have recently read a number of commenters expound on quotes from Thomas Jefferson. The value of Jefferson to the writer is that he has quotes on almost anything—and various positions on those things. That perhaps shows an agile and flexible mind, one that changes its views over time and in response to new facts or further reflection. Or, it is the sign of an intellectual and political opportunist with no fixed principles. I prefer to think the former. Either way, it can leave one wondering what Jefferson’s principles were. In that regard, one historian published a biography of Jefferson called, American Sphinx.

Here are some of Jefferson’s views guaranteed to make the politically correct “progressive” set cringe. (And I’m not even including his interesting speculations on racial characteristics in his Notes On The State Of Virginia.)

On redistribution and other Obama policies to “share the wealth”:

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

“Our wish is that there may be maintained that state of property, equal or unequal, that results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers.” [From the Second Inaugural]

“To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to everyone of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”

On the nanny state, relevant to welfare programs, unemployment compensation and its extensions, and Obamacare:

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the deigns of ambition.”

“If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.”

“Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.”

“That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.”

On central planning, deficit spending, and big government, relevant to pretty much all of Obama’s policies:

“Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”

“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned—this is the sum of good government.”

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds…[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on our fellow-sufferers….And this is the tendency of all human governments.”

Some political advice for the dedicated Leftists in the government seeking to transform the U.S. and reform the citizenry:

“Should reformers attempt more than the established habits of the people are ripe for, they may lose all and retard indefinitely the ultimate object of their aim.”

“Delay is preferable to error.”

Speaking of reforming human nature through education, one must know one’s limitations:

“He proposed a two-track educational system, with different tracks in his words for ‘the laboring and the learned.’ Scholarship would allow a very few of the laboring class to advance, Jefferson says, by ‘raking a few geniuses from the rubbish.’”

“There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.”

No doubt describing the Pelosi-Reid Congress abetted by Obama:

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” [He got that from Plato. Also found in Madison’s writings in The Federalist. In other words, rather common knowledge for those who think.]

Perhaps a prediction of the political and social worth of East Coast and West Coast Europhile elites who want to degrade the American politico-economic system to that of Europe:

“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”

Relevant to today’s Obama-besotted, sycophantic press that, as one commenter noted recently, would embarrass even a Renaissance court:

“Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.”

The remedy:

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

“Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”

On executive war power, a hat tip to Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and George W. Bush, and a thumbs-down to progressive lawyers and other promoters of “lawfare”:

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property, and all those who enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.”

“The President subscribed to Gallatin’s reasoning and saw no reason to seek a declaration of war, or even extensive consultations, from Congress: ‘That a body containing 100 lawyers in it, should direct the measures of a war, is, I fear, impossible,’ Jefferson later observed.” Same should go for the courts and the gaggle of human rights lawyers falling all over themselves to cripple executive power to combat terrorism.

On this 4th of July, as the federal government prepares to assign to itself ever greater control over our lives and liberty, down to the very manner in which we address our health, and as the state of California, despite seizing large amounts of treasure from its citizens through onerous taxes far in excess of those imposed by the British on American colonials still finds itself unable to satisfy its ravenous hunger for money, it is worth pausing to read one of the greatest orations in American history, Patrick Henry’s famous “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death” speech. While not done on July 4th, but on March 23, 1775, it was the catalyst for a narrow vote in the Virginia House of Burgesses in favor of joining the Revolutionary War effort then underway in New England. Without the support of Virginia, the most populous and wealthiest colony, that effort would have faced even more daunting odds. Note the tone of defiance that jumps from the words themselves and that was brought to life by his voice, as, according to contemporaries, it rose in crescendo to the defining declaration at the end:

“No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the house. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at the truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

“Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the numbers of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.

“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?

“Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.

“There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free—if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending—if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained—we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Here is one interpretation of the speech:

Two further observations. The speech was delivered without notes or, ahem, a Teleprompter. Also, Henry appeared not to be of the “let’s talk to them without preconditions, and then continue talking to them while they openly proclaim their intentions to achieve our destruction” school of defense and diplomacy.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn reposts an article on “independence.” You know, the concept that the U.S. used to practice when dealing with the whining demands of foreign politicians.

Some comments on the difference between typical Reagan and Obama speeches. With Reagan, there are very few “I’s”; with Obama. the focus too often is on him and his own relevance and importance to the occasion. Second, Reagan emphasizes the positive, and there is a pride in the U.S. that comes through. With Obama, even when he says something positive about the U.S. that is not related to him personally, there is the almost inevitable “On the other hand” comment. There is an ambivalence about the U.S. and its values and triumphs in Obama that is reflected in his presidential speeches. There is also too much moral equivalence that, due to its often contrived essence, is rather immoral. With Reagan, there was little doubt where he, and you, stood.

Note also the unabashed religious references and imagery, sometimes drawn from the words of the participants of the invasion, but usually Reagan’s own references. With Obama that is more hesitant and, if religion enters the speech, it seems more likely to be in references to other religions, especially Islam.

Finally, note the references to detente and the desire for disarmament and peace, beginning at about the 9:00 mark. In that sense, the speech could have been given by Obama, but also by George W. Bush and any number of other presidents. However, there is a difference. Reagan is clear about the role of the U.S. in the world and the need for military preparedness and, potentially, action to protect peace and freedom. Those are the preconditions to negotiating a durable peace with a sworn enemy.

Lest one think that only Republicans such as Lincoln (about whose religious imagery in speeches I have previously posted) or Reagan would invoke God through overtly religious appeals, this is Franklin Roosevelt’s D-Day prayer for the American people. There was a time when Democrats, too, even those to whom the current occupant of the White House is often compared, were less unsure of the American people’s heritage of religion in the public square.

I have previously posted various Thanksgiving Proclamations, including one in 1863 by President Lincoln. All of them had considerable religious imagery, to the point that such proclamations today would be roundly denounced by the elites as exclusionary fundamentalist hate speech. The oratorical luminosity of the religious content of Lincoln’s rhetoric outshines anything that George W. Bush or Sarah Palin have said.

Lest it be urged that Thanksgiving feast proclamations were the only occasions for such forthright and urgent appeals to a provident and involved God, here is a proclamation by Lincoln for a national day of fasting, prayer, and atonement. The deep religiosity that underlies this proclamation and the sentiments expressed therein reflects a temper of the times that makes a mockery of our current opinion elite’s attempts to anchor their fetish of “separation of church and state” to the beliefs of earlier generations. Rather, the attempt to recast the constitutional prohibition on Congress against making laws “respecting an establishment of religion” as a general separation between the religious and all other elements of public life is a modern bastardization. “A secular government for a religious people” meant only that there would be no official religion and no coerced financial support of, profession of adherence to, or participation in, a religion. Beyond that, the organized community was free to engage in public expressions of support for religion. It was not the goal of the Framers (or any generation before the middle of the 20th century) that religion be hidden behind a wall of privacy, while personal sexual matters would be the topic of loud and proud debate in the public square.

Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

In light of the President’s push for the economic “strangulus” bill, and his being likened to FDR, great interest has arisen in the New Deal. The contributors to National Review’s The Corner have been particularly active. Here is another posting about the problematic policies of the New Deal. Especially insightful is this observation:

“Keynesian and other supposedly scientific theories for a government-run economy crash because of politics. Even if the theory of government spending “stimulus” made sense (considering that it doesn’t create any new wealth), government spending would be skewed toward powerful pressure groups who are likely to be better off than the general population.”

Socrates in Plato’s Republic was resigned about the inevitable failure of this most rational of regimes, scientifically designed and controlled in great detail by the most intelligent of men and women to overcome the irrationalities of individual choices. Why would this best of all systems fail? Because ultimately the precise science needed (in The Republic, the “marriage number”) to make the system function would be overwhelmed by the natural drives and passions of humans (in The Republic that was “eros”). Substitute economic planning for the marriage number and politics for eros, and there is the connection.

One of my students, Ali Vazin, sent me a Washington Post opinion piece by a couple of economists about having the federal government nationalize the banks as Sweden did for a while in the 1990s. If one accepts the idea that government ought to step in at all under the theory that this is needed to get credit flowing, the nationalization proposal is just another way to try to separate the “toxic assets” from other aspects of the banks. Once the government does that, the banks eventually are sold to private owners. This is simply a more direct way of government assuming the obligations that are said to be weighing down the balance sheets. Other ways to do this would keep the banks in private hands: Have the government just buy the bad assets and form a “bad bank” to hold and gradually liquidate them. Or have the banks hold them, but have the government “guarantee” the bad loans. These are variations on a theme, though a direct government take-over would be more “socialist” in form and, perhaps, existing shareholders and even bondholders would be more thoroughly wiped out. It would also eliminate the difficult task of identifying and valuing the “toxic assets” quickly. After all, one thing government does well is move slowly (except when it sees a political benefit from hasty action, such as a trillion dollar government seizure of the economy). Other difficulties, such as selling those assets over time, would exist under any of those methods.

To me, the most questionable aspect of this proposal is that it will inevitably succumb to politics. Given the history of Senator Chris Dodd’s and Representative Barney Frank’s connections to the banking industry, not to mention then-Senator Barack Obama’s connections to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it is pollyannaish to assume that they or various FOBs (”Friends of Barack”) and others will not get sweet deals out of this over the bodies of the prior private owners and the American taxpayers. Given the size of American banks, compared to Sweden’s, there is simply too much involved for there not to be massive corruption and influence-peddling. This problem is endemic to politics and government regulation, of course, but the sheer size of a government take-over of chunks of the American financial industry guarantees a huge political distortion. Moreover, the incentive to retain government control so that those placed in charge can continue to exert political influence is irresistible. Whatever sense a “temporary” nationalization of the banks may make from a scientific economic perspective, it is the inevitable political corruption of the process that is the problem.

President Obama is eagerly advancing a cult of Lincoln for his own purposes. Just as the powerful light of the sun reflects off the moon to the latter’s visual enhancement, Obama appears to be hoping to enhance his own undeveloped presidential stature by basking in the glow of Lincoln’s legacy. Today is the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, so this makes for fortuitous timing. The President may be forgiven for “seizing the day,” so to speak, at least until his other persona, that of the new FDR, becomes more useful and timely. Some among the elites, of course, will feel much more comfortable celebrating today’s bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birthday than that of Lincoln’s—especially after they finish reading this post.

Obama lauded Lincoln’s lack of partisanship. I don’t understand that. Lincoln was a pragmatic politician, so he pleaded for leniency towards the defeated Confederates so as not to prolong the rift caused by the Civil War. He also tolerated the politically-connected Democrat general McClellan as leader of Union forces until the latter’s shortcomings endangered the war effort. In shrewdly calculated and timed manner, he emancipated the slaves to further the Union’s war ends. He balanced factions within his party. Pre-war, he had a vision of a possible compromise on the existing institution of slavery.

But in many ways Lincoln was strongly partisan. His political stance as a Whig Congressman against the Democrats’ James Polk’s engaging in war with Mexico, his insistence that the slavery issue be settled according to his anti-slavery “compromise” platform, and his muscular use of executive power against political opponents during the Civil War, show a strongly, but shrewdly, partisan man. But, to borrow from Machiavelli, to be successful in a democratic system nourished by peaceful partisan contests, it may behoove the successful President to appear to be bi-partisan, ecumenical, and tolerant of dissent, as long as in fact he is not so. Obama has let the mask of bi-partisanship slip occasionally, as he openly declared the obvious and unobjectionable position that he got to call the shots because he won the election.

If Obama indeed intends to model himself after Lincoln, this bodes well for America’s national security because Obama will act vigorously to extend and expand the Bush administration’s war effort, foreign intelligence gathering, domestic surveillance, terrorist detention without habeas corpus, and trials by military commissions for committing various ambiguously and flexibly-defined criminal acts. While Obama has taken a step in the right direction by allowing CIA extraordinary renditions and CIA prisons for temporary detention of terrorists, he has a lot to learn form the ol’ Railsplitter, Honest Abe.

I am attaching this Lincoln classic, the Letter to Erastus Corning and Others, in which Lincoln vigorously justifies his executive actions taken in defense of the country. He is responding to criticisms by a Democratic political organization that took a dim view of what it saw as Lincoln’s violations and shortcuts of constitutional law. He slyly chastises the Democrats for their partisan identification, but mostly he delivers a powerful defense of executive action and dominance in time of war.

In similar vein, this is Lincoln’s message to Congress on July 4, 1861, in which he defends executive power to act in an emergency to protect Americans in the absence of Congressional authorization, or perhaps even in violation of it. The message contains the famous rhetorical question, “To state the question more directly, are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one law be violated?” It is Lincoln’s response to his constitutional critics’ feckless insistence on “fiat iustitia, ruat coelum,” “let justice be done, though heaven should fall.”

One cannot imagine Obama taking that kind of leadership role in an emergency and the responsibilities that brings, especially given his uninspiring performance so far. Placating hordes of interest groups for political gain by giving them hundreds of billions of dollars while holding the country’s economic future hostage is not leadership and just does not remind one of Lincoln. In terms of assuming burdens of leadership and making unpopular political decisions in defense of the people of the U.S., at least, George Bush comes to mind as Lincoln’s heir much more readily than does Barack Obama.

It may seem like piling on, but the issue is urgent. So, here is another article that explains lucidly how significant portions of the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. Two points are particularly relevant to today. First, the concern about deflation is valid, but probably overblown. Another way to look at deflation is that it is a correction of the price bubble for various goods and services. Hence, news about a low annual  price rise over the short term is not a message of doom, but of hope for the future. Although he probably does not recognize this as a component of a larger mosaic of economic models, Governor Schwarzenegger’s effective ten percent pay cut for state workers through his involuntary furlough decree is a reduction of labor costs. The alternative is to lay people off. There are advantages to each. The former reduces per-unit labor costs, and avoids higher unemployment (though it increases underemployment, a concept not readily evident, given the normal work habits of state workers). But it increases the number of people who may be put in a precarious personal financial position. In that regard, firing a few may be less harmful than cutting the pay of many.

The second point is to avoid drastic interference by government in the economy through marketing arrangements, cartelization that eliminates competition for business or labor, propping up large industries, dictating prices, or interfering in conditions of employment with the result that labor costs are higher than economic conditions demand. As the article points out, the principal villain in that regard was the National Recovery Act, although the Agricultural Adjustment Act wreaked similar havoc for agricultural commodities. The former law was declared unconstitutional in the Schechter Poultry case, the latter in U.S. v. Butler. Both acts had successors that were marginally better than their unconstitutional predecessors, but the basic flaw of governmental distortion of the market remained and impeded the recovery.

The history of American legal education is a history of competing views of the lawyer’s position in society. On the one hand, there is the view of the lawyer as a professional who undergoes special and intense training through the study of opaque precedents and turgidly-written treatises to gain access to the essence of the law and to understand the deeper connections of the law to other areas of human endeavors, such as economics, religion, and philosophy. The lawyer, steeped in the depth of law’s traditions and the breadth of law’s institutional sweep, becomes a natural actor on the great stage of human events. This view of the lawyer’s exalted position may not rise to the level of the old continental European perception of law as the province of outright scholars. Still, it comes sufficiently close, close enough to satisfy the famously large egos of lawyers. After all, law schools today hand their graduates a degree of “Juris Doctor.”

On a much more prosaic level, there is the view of the lawyer as a skilled tradesman. This attorney is little more than a scribe trained to draft basic forms and, for some, to represent clients in court in pedestrian disputes that a judge or jury will decide, if things go well, according to a mysterious cocktail of routine legal authority and common sense interpretation of the facts. No specialized expertise is needed here, particularly with the proliferation of form pleadings and rigorously standardized procedures. No scholar of the law, this. Plumber would be more like it, someone who is called in to clean out the legal detritus that is making the client’s life difficult. On a more genteel level, this is the lawyer signified by the otherwise meaningless designation “Esquire.”

The model of the lawyer-professional came to the fore in this country with the formation of university-affiliated law schools. That process began toward the end of the 18th century with the establishment of a chair in “Law and Police” (Regulation) at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. At the urging of Thomas Jefferson, the first holder of that position was the state’s chancellor, George Wythe. Other universities copied this approach, but it served only to expose students generally to the law, not to train lawyers.

Then came the first separate law school affiliated with a university, when a chair was endowed in 1816 at Harvard. The first holder of that chair was Isaac Parker, the chief justice of Massachusetts. Harvard Law School became a self-governing entity when a chair was endowed in 1829 for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story. Before there were these university law schools, the legal elite might go to London to live and study the law at one of the Inns of Court.

Over the course of the 19^th century, the number of university-affiliated law schools increased exponentially. A number of elite schools stressed entrance requirements, such as prior college study or competency exams, to limit the applicant pool to those perceived to be sufficiently disciplined and intellectually prepared for the task of unlocking law’s mechanistic operation. But most schools did not require such preparation.

Since then, the university-affiliated law school has undergone changes in the length of the period of study, standards of admissions, professor qualifications, pedagogy and course coverage. The model of the scholar of the law that the system developed is still with us, particularly after German university-modeled curricular reforms were instituted in the 1870s by Harvard Law School Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell and his former student and academic side-kick, Professor and future Dean James Barr Ames. (For those who know the Harvard Law School, Langdell Hall is the beautiful neoclassical building. The Ames Courtroom is located in Austin Hall, the more ominously massive Romanesque building. I had classes in both buildings, and Austin Hall was depressing in the dark winter and spring days.)

Langdell instituted a number of reforms that radically altered university-based law school education. He hired full-time law professors instead of judges and attorneys. Preferably, these professors came directly from the most promising students, as true “scientists” of the law. He extended the course of study to three years, from the then more typical two-year and even one-year curriculum. He required a set course of study, rather than ad hoc attendance. Most significantly, he introduced the “socratic” method of law study. Compared to the then-prevailing lecture method, socratic teaching is slow and tortuous. It was useful to explore the internal mechanisms of the common law. Langdell banished constitutional law from the curriculum because it was polluted by external principles imposed by the framers at Philadelphia, not built on some internal moving principles that came to be known by inductive logic based on study of law’s operation.

The study of legal theory and the methodology of teasing out the principles of law through “socratic” investigation of judicial precedents demanded intellectual virtuosity unlikely to be spread generously throughout the population. But, anyway, this was law for the upper and upper-middle classes. While lawyers have always been prominent in American politics, this professional legal class was suited best for the classic republican polity of the early United States.

In distinction to this elite professional model of legal education stood the more pedestrian and democratic model of the lawyer-craftsman who “read the law” as an apprentice to an established lawyer. In the early years of the Republic, an alternative version of training such lawyer-tradesmen was the first model of formal legal education in the U.S. This was the proprietary, free-standing law school or academy, typically founded for profit by a judge or prominent attorney who found this to be a better source of income than the apprentice system of free labor. Judge Tapping Reeve’s Litchfield Academy in Connecticut, or the Revolutionary War-era lectures by Virginia Chancellor George Wythe (attended by a young John Marshall) are examples. Both systems continued to be important for training American lawyers until well into the 19^th century.

The methods of training legal craftsmen focused less on the intricacies of legal doctrine and the moving causes of law, and more on practical training to find one’s way through the complicated writs and procedures of early American common law. Lawyers were also taught the rudimentaries of drafting documents, such as wills, contracts, and debt instruments and, very important in a land-rich country with a moving frontier of settlement, the searching of land titles.

In similar vein, as the American polity changed from the classic republic of Hamilton and Jefferson to the democratic republic of Andrew Jackson that drew much of its vitality from the West and from immigrant groups, the more democratic accessibility of training for the law either by apprenticeship or by attending some lectures at a proprietary academy allowed lawyers to retain their leadership and participation in the new order. Some states initially reacted with formal licensing requirements, but those continued to be loosened during the rest of the 19^th century.

A typical and amusing tale of mid-19th century licensing is told about Abraham Lincoln. A man wanted to become a lawyer, and went before the local judge to be licensed. The judge sent him to Abraham Lincoln to see what Lincoln thought of the applicant’s prospects. The applicant presented himself to Lincoln, who was taking a bath. Without leaving the tub, Lincoln asked several questions of the applicant and then gave him a letter to take back to the judge. The letter said that the guy was a great deal smarter than he looked, and that the judge should admit him if he wanted. For getting to the point, it certainly beats the modern California way of sitting in an exam room for three days straight.

As the 19^th century progressed, the proprietary law school became less significant. In its place arose newer versions. In 1866, the Iowa Law School opened as a night school. The University of Minnesota soon followed with both day and night programs. Thereafter, the number of night schools expanded along with the number of university-affiliated day law schools. Particularly in night school, the curricular focus was rigorously practical and eschewed grand theory and universal principles in favor of studying local law and procedure. These schools opened the doors of the legal craft to the children of ethnic minorities, immigrants, and the working class. They were the training ground for many lower court judges and local politicians. But, in response to the growth of these schools came more stringent lawyer licensing procedures through formal bar exams, beginning at the turn of the 20^th century. Additional quality control came when the American Bar Association and the American Association of Law Schools began to approve certain law schools whose curriculum imitated Dean Langdell’s Harvard prototype of the “national” law school.

The dichotomy in legal education is still with us. There remain, of course, the elite university-affiliated law schools that produce the nation’s supply of mega-firm lawyers, law professors, national politicians and bureaucrats, and upper-echelon judges, the intellectual “professionals” of the law. But there is also a vibrant and important collection of lesser law schools, both university-affiliated and free-standing. These schools sometimes have part-time night programs in addition to their full-time day programs. They emphasize the teaching of practical skills, a deficiency in the pure intellectual model of Langdell’s socratic and scientific inquiry that critics recognized early on. Indeed, many law schools of all types to a degree replicate the law office apprenticeship model through “externship programs,” though straight “reading of the law” today is an unusual way of preparing to be a lawyer.

In California, at least, the Litchfield Academy model of the proprietary law school is replicated in law schools that are not approved by the American Bar Association. Such schools may be accredited by the State Bar of California or be “unaccredited.” Typically they are considerably cheaper than university law schools. Unlike the ABA-approved schools, they may require less than a college degree as a prerequisite. They are also usually night schools and often exist in localities not served by a nearby university. This creates access to law study for people with families and jobs and for those who do not have the time or inclination to complete an undergraduate program.

In the future, the development of on-line legal education will serve the function of educating a broader stratum of people in the craft of lawyering. Those programs will simply be the latest in the waves of innovation that have swept over legal education and provide alternatives to the relatively static number of places at elite schools. They will serve to keep access to the law open. Just as their predecessors of legal apprenticeship in the 19th century and part-time education and night law school programs in the 20th century, they will graduate students more likely to serve in legal institutions of local government and in legal services for the middle class and the poor.

Tomorrow I will add comments about how this split approach in legal education relates to a problem of bar exam success at my law school.

As I sat down with a nice big pot of coffee to peruse the news of the day, my eyes might have seen this item. A bonus to the fun to be had watching the Obama administration in action is the presence of Joe Biden. Joe’s favorite topic for discourse is, predictably, Joe Biden. So it comes as no surprise that Joe has proclaimed himself more knowledgeable than Dick Cheney and “the most experienced vice-president since anybody.” Let’s see, now. Who were some of these vice-presidents who pale in comparison to our Joe? There was John Adams (Washington’s V.P.), Thomas Jefferson (Adams’s), George Clinton (Jefferson’s and Madison’s), Elbridge Gerry (Madison’s), John C. Calhoun (J.Q. Adams’s and Jackson’s), Martin van Buren (Jackson’s). In the 20th century, there was John Nance Garner (FDR’s), Alben Barkley (Harry Truman’s), Lyndon Johnson (Kennedy’s), Nelson Rockefeller (Ford’s), George H. W. Bush (Reagan’s), Dick Cheney (G.W. Bush’s). I won’t get into detail on the many other experienced vice-presidents, from Theodore Roosevelt and Charles Dawes to Charles Curtis and Hubert Humphrey. They leave Biden in the dust. Thirty-four years as a buffoonish Senator don’t mean qualitative experience. This is likely to be the first guy since the FDR years to be returned to the pasture of irrelevance where many earlier vice-presidents, more qualified than Joe, grazed away the years. Anyway, Joe, unless you admit to being a “nobody,” in the new liberal age of equality, nobody is more qualified than anybody.

I heard one wag say that if Obama wants to bring back the New Deal, it means nine years of double-digit unemployment, followed by a major war (where over 400,000 Americans will be killed) and ending with the nuking of Japan before things improve. When I told my wife, she suggested we skip the intervening bad years and just proceed directly to the nuking of the Japanese.

I find it amusing, in an eye-rolling way, that so many of the Obamaniacs in the elites compare their idol to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The professor whose office is next door to mine has a post card with pictures of his two heroes, FDR and BHO, on his bulletin board outside the door. He teaches legal history, no less, and should really know better. But as a Democrat, he’s probably not as well versed in the political economy of the New Deal.

In my constitutional law class, we discuss some of the New Deal-era Supreme Court cases. As a part of the lesson, I discuss the politics and economics of the FDR approach reflected in the laws challenged in those cases. Most, if not all, of my students hear for the first time some criticism of that revered icon of American history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I describe his program of corporate-state capitalism as fascistic and analyze the attributes that make it such. But even my litany of New Deal government policy disasters pales in comparison to these listed by National Review’s Jim Powell, the author of FDR’s Folly. That list shows the disaster that government interference and involvement in the economy always brings. Government ends up being like the doctors of prior centuries who (at best) undermined and delayed their patients’ recovery by “bleeding them” to cure them of their ailments.

The New Deal should be a road map, alright. A road map of where not to go. I prefer the direct route of recovery, and it does not involve the government.

During and after World War II, there was an enduring theory widely spread among the political Right that the FDR administration knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor before it happened and did nothing so that they could trick Americans into war. These are the soulmates-in-paranoia to the current fringe elements on the Left and the Right (e.g. Rosie O’Donnell) who believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al., staged or at least knew about the September 11 attacks. Whatever may have been the effect of the FDR administration’s efforts to isolate Japan economically and to deprive the Japanese of raw material for their industry on Japan’s decision to go to war against the U.S. at that time, analysis of historical evidence shows that the administration did not receive a tell-tale coded message about the imminent attack. As one historian points out,

In an interview, Mr. Hanyok said there were several lessons from the controversy that reverberate today. He said that some adherents of the theory that the message was sent and seen were motivated by an unshakable faith in the efficacy of radio intelligence, and that when a copy of the message could not be found they blamed a cover-up — a reminder that no intelligence-gathering is completely foolproof.

Washington also missed potential warning signs because intelligence resources had been diverted to the Atlantic theater, he said, and the Japanese deftly practiced deception to mislead Americans about the whereabouts of Tokyo’s naval strike force.

“The problem with the conspiracy theory,” Mr. Hanyok said, “is that it diverted attention from the real substantive problems, the major issue being the intelligence system was so bureaucratized.”

Does he mean to say that intelligence is not fool-proof, and that the enemy may try to deceive you about his weapons capabilities? Nah, that can’t be because we all know that the CIA and foreign intelligence services always get things right and that the real problem is “Bush lied; people died.”

Amity Shlaes writes in the Wall Street Journal about the dangers of a New Deal-style spending program that emphasizes temporary job creation and other exploding-deficit stimulus packages by the next administration. Shlaes has written a well-received scholarly book about the Great Depression and the New Deal, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Artificially high wages and high taxes make for high unemployment, as the statistics from the 1930s show. While you may have a job, and a not badly-paying one at that, companies cannot afford to hire and may have to lay off workers. This keeps unemployment unnecessarily high. High taxes inhibit capital formation. Of course, if taxes aren’t raised, and the deficit is allowed to balloon, that raises its own serious dangers of dollar collapse and at least “real” inflation.

Each Thanksgiving, the Wall Street Journal publishes two editorials. The first, The Desolate Wilderness, is an account of the travel of the Pilgrims from England, via Leyden in the Netherlands, to America in their search for a place to establish their “City from God” apart from the (from their perspective) corruption and oppression of their place of birth.

The second, And the Fair Land, celebrates the great fortune that has come to their successors, and to those who followed them to this new land, for which all of us should give thanks.

Another Thanksgiving Proclamation, the first for the new United States, was made by the Continental Congress in 1777 to celebrate the military success that ended what was for the Americans the darkest year of the Revolutionary War and turned the direction of history in their favor. Here is another perspective about that event. As an aside, the Congress’ failure to recognize the military talent of Benedict Arnold and his contribution to the success at Saratoga caused Arnold to switch sides. Instead, as the article relates, Congress rewarded the incompetent, but politically popular and well-connected, Horatio (”Grandma,” as he was called by his detractors) Gates. Gates continued to be a problem for Washington. For example, he appears to have been connected to the Newburgh, N.Y., plotting against Congress by unpaid Continental Army officers at the end of the Revolutionary War.

Thanksgiving is emerging as a sort-of-secular alternative to Christmas. The latter holiday, despite its crass and at times repulsive commercialization, still retains that reminder of Christ, the mere mention of which gives secularists anxiety attacks and causes atheists to reach for unholy water and to uncross themselves. Today’s Thanksgiving knows not Jew or Gentile, Roman or Greek, atheist or believer, Republican or Democrat, Darwinist or Creationist, or any other division except perhaps between vegans and people who eat all foods for which the human dental structure was designed. It becomes, then, the perfect pseudo-reverential holiday that can unite us all in a civic celebration similar to the pro forma celebrations of civic religion in pre-Christian Greek cities. In fact, it differs from the holiday of my childhood, when Thanksgiving occupied a decidedly less exalted position than Christmas. Such is the cost of the increasingly aggressive and uncompromising, but successful, secularist program to drive meaningful and robust religion from the public square into the shadows of the private domain.

But before Thanksgiving becomes identified solely with its modern character, Americans need to remind themselves of the holiday’s historical origins as an unabashedly religious celebration. To that end, I am posting George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789, the first for the nation under the new Constitution. The following post contains Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation in the difficult, but decisive war year, 1863. Note the strong religious tones and similar appeals of both, connecting the moral standing of the country, along with its fate, to the guidance of the Almighty. This is not unexpected from Lincoln, who often wrote in a fervid and soaring, yet still elegant, style. But the imagery is equally vivid in the words of the usually rhetorically more plain-spoken and reserved Washington. 

George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789 

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

Proclamation of Thanksgiving
by the President of the United States of America
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

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 one 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. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[Signed]
A. Lincoln