During the Civil War, both presidents, Lincoln and Jeff Davis, issued Thanksgiving Day proclamations and celebration of the holiday as we know it grew as a result.
We all know about the famed Pilgrims who feasted with the local Indians in 1621, but after that the holiday was only observed once in a while. When he was the general commanding the American forces during the Revolution, George Washington issued a Thanksgiving proclamation in December of 1777. After the war, in 1789, he did so once again. Then, as President, John Adams also issued proclamations for two of his four years in the highest office of the land. But after that it was more or less a forgotten idea.
It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of a great war, that President Lincoln revived the tradition. The northern president wasn’t the only one to do this during the war, though. President Jefferson Davis had issued his Thanksgiving Day proclamation a year earlier, in 1862. Jefferson’s idea of Thanksgiving was a bit different than the one we think of today. The southern President had declared that the south’s observance would be a day of fasting and reflection, not feasting and revelry.
Of course, the holiday we are familiar with is connected to Lincoln’s proclamation. But, apparently the proclamation was not all Lincoln’s idea. It wasn’t just the war that spurred Lincoln to issue his proclamation, but a letter from a woman named Sarah Hale that convinced him to do so. Hale, the writer of the poem now called “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” had been trying to convince presidents to issue a Thanksgiving proclamation since 1846 and when Lincoln saw her letter he decided to follow her suggestion.
From there our formal national holiday was born.
President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving 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 can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
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Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation”
It is indisputable that the Republican Party is really the party of civil rights, not the Democrats. And today we have one more example of that truism with the 145th anniversary of the Republican Party’s essential outlawing of the Ku Klux Klan, the Democrat Party’s domestic terror group.
Monday, February 19 has been designated as “President’s Day,” another fake holiday seemingly meant to tear down American heroes and replace them with a meaningless day off of work (for some). But I urge you, America, reject this sham holiday.
This week the left has gone off on another one of its meaningless tangents in response to something wholly divorced from their newest crusade. This time they are suddenly all upset about the Confederate flag. Why? Because a killer is seen in a photo with one. So, OK, fine. The left has its wild eyed tangents, we all know. But what is most infuriating about this particular crusade is that morons who claim to be Republicans are also joining in with this silliness. Certainly those who have should be branded traitors to the center right coalition. 
Leave it to leftist Illinois to use a museum dedicated to celebrating Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents in history, as a platform to celebrate a loser like Adlai Stevenson while at the same time ignoring Ronald Reagan, a native son, big winner, and another greatest president.
Hillary Clinton is an Illinois girl, right? Oh, and Hillary Clinton is the smartest woman in the world, isn’t she? Then how come she thinks Abraham Lincoln got elected to the Senate before he became President, when he never did?
President Obama will deliver the first State of the Union address for his second term on February 12 this year. 
Sadly, the debut of Director Steven Spielberg’s epic film about our 16th President is being used by many Old Media outlets as propaganda to push the concept that Barack Obama is in the same league or, worse, is somehow just like Abraham Lincoln. On November 15 it was CBS This Morning’s turn to couple one of our most famous presidents to the current resident of the White House.
As he unveiled his epic new movie based on Abraham Lincoln’s civil war era presidency, Steven Spielberg said he doesn’t want his film to become a “political football” in today’s presidential election. But as he talked about it further, it seemed as if he went on to say that today’s Republican party is somehow just like the slave-holding Democrats of the antebellum south.
Does President Obama have gall, or what? Obama, a man famed for being born to a Marxist from Kenya, trained by communist Frank Marshal Davis, and bathed in the destructive tactics of radical, anti-American leftist Saul Alinsky says the he hopes that Abraham Lincoln will “rub off” on the GOP candidates for president who were visiting Illinois.
I have to say, I am getting a bit sick and tired of this nonsensical lament about how rotten it is that those running for president are “rich” people. Stop it right now, America. The fact is that we’ve never really had a poor man as president so talking about it as if it is news that rich people often seek the presidency is stupid. Not only that, but today it is impossible for a poor or even middle class man to run for president anyway, so get this populist silliness out of your minds right this instant.
Well, maybe John Sexton and I both gave Obama a little too much credit on this “intercontinental railroad” gaffe? When he and I wrote about this little gaffe we both assumed that it was no big deal, that it was juts a slip of the tongue — and an easy one to make at that — but that it was evidence of how the Old Media gave Obama a free pass on mistakes. But now it is starting to look like Obama really doesn’t know the difference between the words “intercontinental” and “transcontinental.”