Let Us Revive the True Spirit of Thanksgiving

We’ve been celebrating Thanksgiving in the United States since forever, but 1863 was a special one. It was in this year that President Abraham Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation, that set the last Thursday each November aside as a national holiday, for Americans to thank God for our prosperity.

The full text of that proclamation is below.

Before getting to that, though, I think it’s appropriate to set a bit of the scene.

Southern plantation owners and politicians argued that the end of slavery would be the end of their economic prosperity. The argument, as my brilliant wife pointed out to me, is almost identical to the opposition shown against incoming President Trump’s policy to deport illegal aliens from USA. The screeching of the corporations that run most southern farms has only just begun.

However, by 1863, as noted by Lincoln below, the economy of the Northern, non-slavery states, had grown in both economic output as well as in population. The growth had three components that were directly from Lincoln’s government:

1. Internal Improvements

Two major projects were launched by the Lincoln administration that drove economic growth. First, Lincoln supported and initiated the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, a massive feat of machinery that provided an impetus for developing new technologies. Second, Lincoln launched the Land Grant State College system, which ensured Americans were able to get educated in the latest techniques of agriculture and manufacturing.

2. Greenbacks

The USA had been stuck with gold and silver coins for currency up to 1862. This form of “hard money” was impossible to grow, because supply was limited by mining. Some banks had issued their own paper currency, but these notes were always at risk of devaluing by the failure of the source bank.

This situation made it impossible for the US government to fund both the war and internal improvements.

As a solution, Lincoln, backed by great American economists Henry C. Carey and Salmon P. Chase, began issuing paper currency directly from the US Treasury. There were three utterances between 1862 and 1863. By expanding the issue of this “fiat money”, Lincoln was able to provide support for a growing national economy under the strain of internal warfare.

3. Tariffs

At the time of Lincoln’s election, the USA had the lowest protective tariffs of any nation. During his tenure, he signed the Morrill bill, which had been a cornerstone of Lincoln’s electoral campaign. In fact, a cornerstone of confederate Democrat Stephen Douglas’s campaign was to prevent protectionist measures from being enacted.

Before the end of the Civil War, protectionist tariffs on foreign goods topped 50%. The revenue generated was used to pay for war expenses as well as the expansion of agriculture and industry across the north.

The tariffs had the added benefit of enraging the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Lord Palmerston responded, “We do not like slavery, but we want cotton, and we dislike very much your Morrill tariff.”

In the renewed discussion of protective tariffs by incoming President Trump, which also is greatly distressing British economists, it should be remarked that Lincoln’s monetary and trade policy was combined with vigorous investment into basic economic infrastructure and technological advance. Without this latter investment, tariffs are indeed inflationary.

Americans do not need more of what we already have, like cars. We need major public works projects, like a new Tennessee Valley Authority to rebuild the American Southeast, which has been repeatedly devastated by natural disasters since the early 2000s. President Trump should declare several new public works projects in this style immediately, to provide a true outlet for renewed American manufacturing might.

Without further ado, Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Transcript for President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation from October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States

A Proclamation

The year that is drawing toward 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 even soften 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 provoke their aggressions, 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 fields 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 heretofore. 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 whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated 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

By the President: William H. Seward. Secretary of State.