Ulysses S. Grant photo

Proclamation 202—Thanksgiving Day, 1871

October 28, 1871


By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

The process of the seasons has again enabled the husbandman to garner the fruits of successful toil. Industry has been generally well rewarded. We are at peace with all nations, and tranquillity, with few exceptions, prevails at home. Within the past year we have in the main been free from ills which elsewhere have afflicted our kind. If some of us have had calamities, these should be an occasion for sympathy with the sufferers, of resignation on their part to the will of the Most High, and of rejoicing to the many who have been more favored.

I therefore recommend that on Thursday, the 30th day of November next, the people meet in their respective places of worship and there make the usual annual acknowledgments to Almighty God for the blessings He has conferred upon them, for their merciful exemption from evils, and invoke His protection and kindness for their less fortunate brethren, whom in His wisdom He has deemed it best to chastise.

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 28th day of October, A.D. 1871, and of the Independence of the United States the ninety-sixth.

U. S. GRANT.

By the President:

HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State .

Ulysses S. Grant, Proclamation 202—Thanksgiving Day, 1871 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/204371

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