Sinterklaas

Sinterklaas

Amsterdam hosts the largest Saint Nicholas parade in the world. The white-bearded legend traditionally makes his spectacular entrance into the city by sailing down the Amstel River then trades his boat for his white horse Amerigo, and the parade continues through the streets. Although the feast of Saint Nicolas falls on 6 December, the evening of 5 December is the main gift-giving occasion during the holiday season in the Netherlands. Called 'sinterklaasavond' (Sinterklaas evening) or'pakjesavond' (presents evening), Sint drops off a sack full of gifts on the doorstep before heading back to Spain. Following his late-night visit, much like at Christmas, everyone unwraps their presents from Sinterklaas and reads aloud the poems that have been written especially for each recipient. The author of these light-hearted poems remains anonymous.

Saint Nicholas has had close ties with Amsterdam since 343 AD. Legend has it that Sinterklaas originally came from Turkey to Amsterdam as St. Nicolaus, the Bishop of Mira. He is specifically described as a benefactor of young women. No one really knows why he then chose to live in Spain but historians point to the Spanish domination over the Netherlands in the past. His name appears on the oldest Greek list and on five other lists of participants in the Council of Nicaea and he is said to have physically attacked and beaten the major Arian bishop over the nature of the Trinity--and is often pictured as having a broken nose as a result.

The Christmas-like celebration on Dec. 5 has in recent years become part of the polarized discourse about race in the Netherlands. At the heart of the discussion is "Black Pete," Sinterklaas' helper--often the Saint's "enforcer" who punishes naughty children--who is often played by white people in blackface makeup and Afro wigs. Opponents see him as an outdated and offensive caricature that harks back to slavery, while the majority of Dutch people see Pete as a harmless children's character who has come to symbolize what they see as attacks on Dutch culture and traditions. Even the sacred United Nations has weighed in, with its Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, urging the Netherlands to "actively promote the elimination of those features of the character of Black Pete which reflect negative stereotypes and are experienced by many people of African descent as a vestige of slavery."
This has persisted in the country's public debate with the Black minority increasingly annoyed and the traditional Dutch surprisingly resistant to change. Some additions have been made with Zwarte Pieten evolving into a sort of sooty chimney-sweep.

Dutch Stamps:

Imitations of Democracy

On this day:
771
Austrasian King Carloman dies, leaving his brother Charlemagne King of the now complete Frankish Kingdom.
1110
First Crusade: The Crusaders sack Sidon.
1259
Kings Louis IX of France and Henry III of England agree to the Treaty of Paris, in which Henry renounces his claims to French-controlled territory on continental Europe (including Normandy) in exchange for Louis withdrawing his support for English rebels.
1563
The final session of the Council of Trent is held (it opened on December 13, 1545).
1674
Father Jacques Marquette founds a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan to minister to the Illiniwek (the mission would later grow into the city of Chicago, Illinois).
1783
At Fraunces Tavern in New York City, US General George Washington formally bids his officers farewell.
1872
The crewless American ship Mary Celeste is found by the British brig Dei Gratia (the ship had been abandoned for nine days but was only slightly damaged).
1971
McGurk’s Bar bombing: An Ulster Volunteer Force bomb kills 15 civilians and wounds 17 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
1992
Somali Civil War: President George H. W. Bush orders 28,000 US troops to Somalia in Northeast Africa.

***

Attracting global talent is not China’s strength—the world’s best would rather join the United States. But if America abandons the openness that has long underpinned its exceptionalism, it will squander one of its biggest advantages and decline into a second-rate power.--Tabarrok

***

“I inherited the worst inflation in history.” (From Trump's cabinet meeting)

Actually, he inherited 3% inflation. Which is about where it remains today.

(Inflation peaked at 23.7% in 1920 . . . nearly 14% in 1947 and again in 1980 . . . and 9.1% during the worst of the COVID supply chain disruptions in tcontinues to show in his harrangues of he middle of Biden’s presidency . . . but had dropped to 3% by the time he left, leaving Trump an economy The Economist called “the envy of the world.”)--This reminder is from a pretty left guy. But, of course, one must remember the interest rates are a function of many things, and spending--legislature-- is one. Presidential input is far less important than the Fed, as Trump's constant haranguing of Powell shows. And Biden didn't do anything on purpose.

Is this just another 'Zito's exaggeration'? Or is this more of a problem?

***

Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck called rent control, “the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing.”

***

Imitations of Democracy

There was certainly a lot of input in the NYC election this year, but it is likely the same players, just a new way to keep score.

One of the first major organizations to endorse Mamdani in the mayoral primary was Region 9A of the United Auto Workers, which may sound strange to outsiders because there’s almost no automobile manufacturing in New York. The ever-flexible UAW is instead one of the key organizers of the city’s subsidized professional class.

UAW Local 2110 represents “over 3,000 workers in universities, publishing, museums, law firms, and other offices.” UAW Local 2320 represents New Yorkers “who work in federally-funded legal services programs,” as well as “in various human services programs.” Local 2325 claims “over 3,000 legal and social service workers” among its members and boasts “chapters at over 30 nonprofits.” Local 2710 speaks for more than 3,000 “student workers” at Columbia University, joining the 4,000 “academic workers” at New York University and the New School who belong to Local 7902. The UAW spent more than $6 million nationally supporting Democrats in the 2024 election cycle; UAW president Shawn Fain spoke in prime time at that summer’s Democratic National Convention.

The United Federation of Teachers, the city’s massive public school employees union, endorsed Mamdani in early July. The group has a $4.5 million annual political budget, which, in fairness, is a small fraction of the $175 million it receives in revenue each year.
  
Many of the most recognizable faces in New York politics are now creatures of the "subsidized knowledge economy." People such as Randi Weingarten, longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Zephyr Teachout, the activist and legal theorist, remain fixtures and power centers despite never having served in elected office. No serious politician attempts a run at a major office in New York without meeting with Al Sharpton, nonprofit industry pioneer and longtime director of the National Action Network. Sharpton appeared at a Harlem rally with Mamdani in late June, days after he locked up the Democratic nomination despite his notably poor performance in Black neighborhoods. Antonio Reynoso, Brooklyn’s young progressive borough president and a possible future mayor, began his working life as a community organizer for ACORN. Linda Sarsour rose to local and national prominence as director of the Arab American Association of New York. Sarsour’s good friend Brad Lander, the city comptroller and a crucial Mamdani primary endorser, headed a nonprofit development corporation in Park Slope and the nonprofit Pratt Center for Community Development before entering electoral politics in the late 2000s.

Legal and social service workers, workers in universities, publishing, museums, law firms, and other offices, the old-time "student workers," NGOs, non-profits, and somebody named Zephyr, all joining together to create an inexperienced band of nonproductive self-interest, all intent on moving the sideshow under the main tent. So they can soldier on, oblivious to the nation's requirements and their fellow citizens' needs, and ignoring their own philosophical and economic limits.

The Politics of Unlimited Supply

On the day:

1804
At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of the French, the first French Emperor in a thousand years.
1805
Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Austerlitz – French troops under Napoleon Bonaparte defeat a joint Russo-Austrian force.
1823
Monroe Doctrine: US President James Monroe delivers a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts.
1845
Manifest Destiny: US President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.
1848
Franz Josef I becomes Emperor of Austria.
1851
French President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte overthrows the Second Republic.
1852
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte becomes Emperor of the French (Napoleon III).
1859
Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16th raid on Harper’s Ferry.
1867
At Tremont Temple in Boston, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.
1942
Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
1956
The Granma yacht reaches the shores of Cuba’s Oriente province and Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 80 other members of the 26th of July Movement disembark to initiate the Cuban Revolution.
1970
The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.

***

Comparing what we’re looking for misses the point. It’s wanting to know that makes us matter. --Stoppard

***

Waltz is a governor of a big state and was last year's Dem VP candidate. Why is he suddenly an idiot?

*** 

The Nativity scene at the Brussels Christmas Festival (now sanitized to "Winter Wonderland") was attacked by a pro-Hamas mob, and the infant Jesus statue was decapitated.

***

Stoppard wrote “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “Arcadia,” and the Academy Award-winning screenplay for “Shakespeare in Love”. He also wrote dialogue for Indiana Jones and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

***

After a severely restrictive energy production program, California now imports 63% of its energy.

***

The Politics of Unlimited Supply

One of the common political insincerities is the promise of unlimited access to limited resources. Not everyone can have a BMW and that is not just because only the evil rich can buy them, it is because there are not enough of them made. Defenestrating all the laws of supply and demand  and promising universal access to a limited resource is simply a lie.

So the Left creates an alternative universe. He creates an imaginary world where all things are available and then asks you to congratulate him. If you just had a mental prodding of something distantly familiar, you are right. This is the imaginary world of childhood. 

Everybody can have a pony.

If you think of a petulant, blustering politician lecturing pouting ones, the political world begins to make sense.

With the publishing of Abundance, the Left's new Sacred Book, they have reassessed their approach. They are now offering unlimited access to things of unlimited supply. Clean air. Clean water. Voting rights. A living wage. Equal rights. All of these gifts exist in unlimited supply. These goals have been scored. What to do?

But Klien revealed a secret. The goals have been frustrated by government itself.

"Abundance is the argument that a lot of what is wrong in our society is that we have manufactured scarcities. We have made it too hard to build and create the things people need more of. The places where we focus in the book are housing, clean energy, and state capacity."

Mamdani's restricted housing is akin to restricted car buying. The story is in the circumstances. There is an abundance of affordable housing, but not in Manhattan. It's virtually against the law to build there.

So there is actually an unlimited supply of everything, and the government is preventing you from having it. What to do?

The Left offers a government solution.

This laughable nonsense caused a shift in the Left's road to power. They no longer offer a chicken in every pot. They offer 'Hope and Change' (Obama), 'Change' and 'Stronger Together' (Hilary), 'Build Back Better' (Biden--strange, yes, but he was demented), and first, 'Forward', then 'Joy' (Harris). 

Joy! Tapping unlimited resources.

"Hey, buddy. Want a little Hope and Change?"

                                         

A Miracle, Thanksgiving-type

On this day:
1782
American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris – In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).
1803
In New Orleans, Louisiana, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.
1947
1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine begins on this day, leading up to the creation of the state of Israel.
2004
Longtime Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings of Salt Lake City, Utah finally loses, leaving him with US$ 2,520,700, television’s biggest game show winnings.

***

Don’t be misled by statements that private property rights put rights of property over rights of people. Private property rights are rights of people over uses of goods they own.-- economists Armen Alchian’s and William R. Allen’s Universal Economics

***

Tom Stoppard died.

***

At the beginning of the Burns film on the American Revolution, the narrator intones that “long before 13 British colonies made themselves into the United States,” the Iroquois had “a union of their own that they called the Haudenosaunee — a democracy that had flourished for centuries.”

The film suggests a connection between a statement made by the Iroquois leader Canasatego, recommending a union on the one hand, and Franklin's suggestion of the pro-British, anti-French Albany Plan that would isolate the French in North America, on the other.

Canasatego made his statement at a 1744 conference over the Treaty of Lancaster, a negotiation between the Iroquois and several colonies. (Remember, most Native Americans had no written language, some had a limited hieroglyphic language.) For his part, Franklin cited the Iroquois as having a confederacy in a single sentence in a 1751 letter about the possibility of a colonial union.

As the scholar Robert Natelson has noted, the Iroquois don’t show up as a model in the 34-volume “Journals of the Continental Congress”; the three-volume collection “The Records of the Federal Convention” (the Constitutional Convention); or the more than 40-volume “Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution.”

As for the Iroquois confederation being a democracy, there were no elections; leaders were selected by women elders, whose status was hereditary.

1619 anyone?

***

A Miracle, Thanksgiving-type

In a 2003 Boston Globe article titled “Giving Thanks for the Invisible Hand,” syndicated columnist Jeff Jacoby offered a wonderful tribute to the miracle of the invisible hand that makes affordable turkeys available so efficiently every year at Thanksgiving through the power of “spontaneous order” and without the need for any central planning or “turkey czars.”
“The invisible hand” — the mysterious power that leads innumerable people, each working for his own gain, to promote ends that benefit many.”


The Thanksgiving Miracle

Isn’t there something wondrous — something almost inexplicable — in the way your Thanksgiving weekend is made possible by the skill and labor of vast numbers of total strangers?

To bring that turkey to the dining room table required the efforts of thousands of people — the poultry farmers who raised the birds, of course, but also the feed distributors who supplied their nourishment and the truckers who brought it to the farm, not to mention the architect who designed the hatchery, the workmen who built it, and the technicians who keep it running. The bird had to be slaughtered and defeathered and inspected and transported and unloaded and wrapped and priced and displayed. The people who accomplished those tasks were supported in turn by armies of other people accomplishing other tasks — from refining the gasoline that fueled the trucks to manufacturing the plastic in which the meat was packaged.

The activities of countless far-flung men and women over the course of many months had to be intricately choreographed and precisely timed, so that when you showed up to buy a fresh Thanksgiving turkey, there would be one — or more likely, a few dozen — waiting. The level of coordination that was required to pull it off is mind-boggling. But what is even more mind-boggling is this: No one coordinated it.
No turkey czar sat in a command post somewhere, consulting a master plan and issuing orders. No one forced people to cooperate for your benefit. And yet they did cooperate. When you arrived at the supermarket, your turkey was there. You didn’t have to do anything but show up to buy it. If that isn’t a miracle, what should we call it?
Adam Smith called it “the invisible hand” — the mysterious power that leads innumerable people, each working for his own gain, to promote ends that benefit many. Out of the seeming chaos of millions of uncoordinated private transactions emerges the spontaneous order of the market. Free human beings freely interact, and the result is an array of goods and services more immense than the human mind can comprehend. No dictator, no bureaucracy, no supercomputer plans it in advance. Indeed, the more an economy is planned, the more it is plagued by shortages, dislocation, and failure.

It is commonplace to speak of seeing God’s signature in the intricacy of a spider’s web or the animation of a beehive. But they pale in comparison to the kaleidoscopic energy and productivity of the free market. If it is a blessing from Heaven when seeds are transformed into grain, how much more of a blessing is it when our private, voluntary exchanges are transformed – without our ever intending it – into prosperity, innovation, and growth?

Thanksgiving's Downside

On this day:

1781
The crew of the British slave ship Zong murders 133 Africans by dumping them into the sea to claim insurance.

***

The Trump administration moved to abruptly cancel or violate existing, legally binding contracts and grants with universities—often involving visas, research funding, or property use—without due process, leading to lawsuits and claims of breach of contract. This disregard for legally binding obligations undermines the rule of law and the reliability of the U.S. government as a partner. The sanctity of contracts is a core principle of both American law and free-market economics.--Dlugash

***

"Trump Uses National Guard Shooting to Cast Suspicion on Refugees" This is a headline from the NYT. Think about it a moment.


***

The assumption that central authority can gather and use all relevant knowledge. Hayek called this “the fatal conceit.” So, what does that mean about AI's efforts to collect human information?

***

Two grandsons of Walmart founder Sam Walton plan to launch a private university focused on science and tech, located on the company’s old HQ campus near downtown Bentonville, Arkansas.

…The future university plans to offer innovative, flexible pathways to jobs in automation, logistics, biotech, and computing — fields crucial to Northwest Arkansas’ future.

***

Is decrying Somali fraud racist?

***

Thanksgiving's Downside

Events like Thanksgiving are upsetting to the Left because they imply community, a violation of the Left's template of division and isolation. The basic element of society, according to the Left, is conflict, most recently the effort of the oppressed to right themselves after some oppressor's damage and continued ill wishes. The essence of community is conflict. This insane oxymoron is a repackaging of the disastrous Marxian homicidal mania of the recent past. 

However, America's invention solved the ancient inequality problem by formalizing the equality of all men regardless of their individual histories and characteristics. This was done by fiat, not by destroying the cultural/political/social outliers.

Somehow this astonishing, optimistic, true egalitarianism cannot be accepted by fractious, angry, rebels-without-a-cause who insist on fighting over problems that America has already solved.

Nast and Thanksgiving

On this day:
1095
On the last day of the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II appoints Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy and Count Raymond IV of Toulouse to lead the First Crusade to the Holy Land.
1520
After navigating through a strait at the southern end of South America, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.
1729
Natchez Indians massacre 138 Frenchmen, 35 French women, and 56 children at Fort Rosalie, near the site of modern-day Natchez, Mississippi.
1893
Women vote in a national election for the first time: the New Zealand general election.

***

“Human nature is shabby stuff, as you may know from introspection.”--deVries

***

As much as the political left loves to use words like “change” and “revolution” as if they had a monopoly or a copyright on them, the actual track record of the left pales in comparison with the social revolutions created by the free market.

No government of the left has done as much for the poor as capitalism has. Even when it comes to the redistribution of income, the left talks the talk but the free market walks the walk.--Sowell

***

Senators Josh Hawley (R‑MO) and Peter Welch (D‑VT) introduced legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, with automatic inflation adjustments. Vice President JD Vance favors an $11 rate. In New York City, mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a self-declared socialist, wants a $30 minimum wage for the city. According to Welch, “Every hardworking American deserves a living wage.”

A wage is not a moral declaration—it is a price. Raise the price, and demand falls. When wages are mandated above the productivity level of the worker, employers have limited options: lay off staff, cut hours, reduce hiring, or replace workers with machines. Hazlitt’s summary still holds: “For a low wage, you substitute unemployment. You do harm all around, with no comparable compensation.”--WSJ

***

Arendt wrote in her 1951 book, “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” that “the ideal subject was not the convinced Nazi, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction no longer existed. A most cherished virtue is loyalty to the leader who, like a talisman, assures that ultimate victory of lie and fiction over truth and reality.”

***

Trump is selling watches on TV. While this might be reality, reducing democracy to its elemental, commercial nature, it is ugly.

***

From Reuters: "The document reviewed by Reuters said Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024 and was approved on April 23 of this year, three months after Trump took office. Lakanwal, 29, who resided in Washington state, had no known criminal history, the official said."
This will be politicized and outtraged words fired. But the basic problem, the safety and success of the American people will, as always, be sidelined to the advantage of our self-absorbed leaders.

This DC Guard shooting crystallizes the essential question in American government: what is the nation obligated to do, what is it forbidden to do, and what is it able to do?

***

Nast and Thanksgiving

Thomas Nast was a Bavarian immigrant credited with developing the American cartoon. He arrived in the 1840s as a child and became the illustrator for Harper's Weekly. He developed the modern version of Santa Claus and the elephant as the Republican Party symbol. As such, this is a provocative drawing, from the Nineteenth Century.

Melanie Kirkpatrick’s 2016 book, Thanksgiving: The Holiday and the Heart of the American Experience:

 

{Thomas) Nast was an immigrant, having arrived in America from Germany when he was six years old, and “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner” reflected what Nast saw as the immigrant’s passionate affection for his new country and commitment to its democratic values….
At the head of the table stands Uncle Sam, who is carving a turkey. Around the table are seated Americans representing an array of races and religions, identified in many cases by their national dress. Among the guests are an African American family, a Native American, a Chinese man with a long queue, an Irish American couple, a Spanish woman wearing a mantilla and holding a fan, a bearded Muslim with a fez on his head. Nast presents the people in this portrait respectfully, not as caricatures. His message is that every American has an equal right to sit at the Thanksgiving table.

Happy Thanksgiving

On this day:
1095 

Pope Urban II declares the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont.

1942
World War II: At Toulon, the French navy scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of Nazi hands.
1971
The Soviet space program’s Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module. It malfunctions and crashes, but it is the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars.
1978
In San Francisco, California, city mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White.
2001
A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.

***

Classical liberalism, as understood by Adam Smith and the American Founders, is an umbrella term. It describes a political philosophy characterized by an emphasis on liberty, limited government, and individual rights. Classical liberalism elevates the rights of people above the rights of the collective. In doing so, it liberates human potential and enables the representative democracy under which we live. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the expansion of classical liberalism paved the way for an outpouring of technological innovation and economic dynamism that changed the world, freeing millions from slavery – figurative and literal – and sparking a mind-blowing rise in living standards and life expectancy.--Hennessey

Therefore, not sacrificing the individual to the group in the long run is beneficial for the group.

***

A new tax for electric and hybrid vehicles has been announced by the British chancellor in her autumn Budget, to compensate for lost gas tax revenues.

***

The CROWN Act, which stands for "Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair," prohibits discrimination based on a person's hairstyle, type or texture. Pennsylvania is the 28th state to pass a version of the CROWN Act.

The Founders would be so proud.

***

Like the Grand Inquisitor felt the Laws of God asked too much of a free man and needed to be more tightly codified by man, so the Left thinks the average American cannot reach the ideals and achievements the geniuses of the Constitution allowed, and consequently have to be more tightly led.

***

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a tricky word. It means gratitude, but it implies more than something to be grateful for, it implies something to be grateful to.

In the fall of 1621, the Plymouth settlers had a celebratory meal with a local Indian tribe as part of a traditional English harvest festival. There are two accounts; no mention is made of a Day of Thanksgiving but they were probably happy; since their arrival, they had a 50% mortality. 

It lasted three days. A Day of Thanksgiving, a day the English would have considered religious, was first held in the new land in 1623 following a needed rainfall. Various days of thanksgiving were celebrated by the country over the years, the first in commemoration of the end of the Revolution by Washington. In 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, Lincoln formally made Thanksgiving an annual event.

It is interesting to see these two men, Washington, suspicious of organized religion, and Lincoln harder to read, celebrating an official Thanksgiving, but both seem heartfelt, Lincoln's surprisingly so. Washington is almost a mirror of the mindset of the time. The two proclamations are below.

The Thanksgiving

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 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 which we experienced in the tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled 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 hath 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 shewn [sic] kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord -- To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease [sic] 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 third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

George Washington

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields 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 cannot 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 unequalled 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 theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence [sic], have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had 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 heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; 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 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 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 third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln