We are taking this grand holiday off to celebrate the birth of our wonderful country and the freedoms from which we’ve all benefited. And around here it’s Independence Day NOT “July 4th.” We don’t celebrate a number we celebrate an event, one of the most glorious events in human history: the birth of our nation.
Have a wonderful holiday, thanks for being a loyal Publius Forum reader and God Bless America.
Warner Todd Huston
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today we celebrate Independence Day, the day we stepped out on our own and formally declared our intention to become our own nation and not a vassal state of England. Unfortunately, too many people keep calling this day “the July Fourth holiday.” But, we don’t celebrate a number or a month. We celebrate our independence as a nation. So, I urge everyone to stop disrespecting our nation’s birthday by calling it “July Fourth” and here is why…
It is well known that John Adams had imagined that July second would be the day that future generations of Americans would remember as their day of independence from England, the nation’s birthday, if you will. It was, after all, on the second that it was proclaimed “(T)hat these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
But it was two days later that those gathered in defiance to the King of England declared a “Declaration of Independency” thereby adopting the famed document that carefully delineated the natural rights by which they claimed independence followed by a list of grievances that would explain why they invoked those rights.
So what are we celebrating? Is it our birth as a nation or are we celebrating the document of Independence? Early celebrations were mixed and a bit confused on that point. Not only that but celebrations on July fourth weren’t even that common for quite some time after the Revolution was over. At first, not many felt a need to celebrate something that had only recently happened and was over. It was time to move on from war in many American’s eyes.
Then again, not many Americans had much interest in the Declaration itself until the 1790s when the emerging parties began to vie for bragging rights over who wrote it. The Democratic Republicans proudly held that their leader, Thomas Jefferson, was the author of the document while the Federalists reminded everyone that their leader, John Adams, was also a member of the committee that drafted the document and that he, as much as Jefferson, had his stamp on the Declaration of Independence.
Continue reading “Dear America, Stop Calling This The ‘July Fourth Holiday.” Here’s Why…”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 244 years as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “Fourth of July” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth” holiday. We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsteady steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man or government can take away from us, rights no man can legitimately prevent us from observing.
Contrary to the God-averse America we have devolved into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
Continue reading “244 Independence Day Celebrations and Counting: But What Does it all Mean?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
John Adams was one of the truly indispensable men among our founding fathers. He was the man that wrote one of the first fully written out Constitutions in human history when he wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts. He wrote a seminal book on government that helped inform the founders of our nation, he was an ambassador to France and other European nations, he was our first vice president, our second president, and more.
In fact, Adams was at the center of one of the incidents that set the tone for our national character. When the Redcoats responsible for the Boston Massacre were put under arrest, John Adams stepped forward to represent the Redcoats in court. Many of his fellow patriots were amazed at this offer, some even incensed at Adams for doing so. But Adams said that the rule of law was far more important than merely making points with the home crowd and the Redcoats deserved to have competent representation.
Continue reading “Our Second President, John Adams, Recalls the First Independence Day”
As we take the day off to celebrate Memorial Day, we wish you and your family a great day.
-By Warner Todd Huston
To honor our troops for Memorial Day this year, I am going to share this story about their mettle. What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly made to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13, 2010. While leading his platoon on a combat patrol, Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan. Lt. Kelly was only 29-years-old.
Giving Thanks for Our Warriors
“Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths… No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make… for you….
“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi… Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines… Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds… But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
Continue reading “Memorial Day Special: Never Forget What American Troops Are Made Of”
-By Warner Todd Huston
“From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”–Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
As we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day to pause in thanks for the sacrifices made by millions of Americans who died while fighting to preserve freedom, a documentary called “These Hallowed Grounds” reminds us that our war dead are not just interred here at home, but are spread across the world on battlefields almost lost to the memory of far too many of us.
When we think of our military cemeteries, those final resting places of so many American heroes, we usually think of Arlington National Cemetery, certainly. But do we think of the hundreds of American military cemeteries in such places as France, the Philippines, and other nations across the world? Sadly, not many of us do.
If you are like many of us, you may not be very well informed about all the many American cemeteries erected to memorialize our legions of war dead. To correct that deficit the PBS documentary “These Hallowed Grounds” is an excellent way to learn about these bucolic and solemn memorials.
Most Americans know of the World War Two cemetery at Omaha Beach, Normandy, site of one of the 1944 D-Day landings. But there are some twenty-one other cemeteries in eight other countries memorializing our dead from World Wars One and Two and the documentary tells the powerful tale of many of them.
Our many war cemeteries are maintained by the U.S. government’s American Battle Monuments Commission and contain monuments to some 125,000 American war dead. The names of another 94,000 missing soldiers are inscribed into the Walls Of The Missing at these locations and this film takes viewers on an important journey across the world to see and learn about them.
Continue reading “Thousands of American Soldiers Lie Buried in U.S. Military Cemeteries Across the World”
-By Warner Todd Huston
A few years after the Civil War as the nation started upon its long road toward reconciliation, rebuilding, and healing the wife of one of the war’s union generals noticed the touching devotion of Confederate widows, wives and their children as each year they came together to place flowers and little flags at the graves of their fallen. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan was so moved by the devotion she witnessed that she urged her husband, Illinois General John A. “Blackjack” Logan, to look into creating what was to become Memorial Day.
General Logan was a Senator from Illinois and eventually became a candidate for Vice President on the 1884 Republican ticket, losing to Grover Cleveland and another Illinoisan, Vice President Adlai Stevenson. But before all that Logan was instrumental in creating Decoration Day, the celebration of the nation’s war dead that eventually became Memorial Day.
The following is the general order that Logan issued in 1868.
HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
Continue reading “The Civil War General from Illinois and His Wife Who Created Memorial Day”
As we take the day off to be with our families, we here at Publius Forum wish you and yours a very happy Easter Sunday.
6 “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
—Matthew 28: 6-10 NIV
Merry Christmas, 2019
“And unto you a child is born.” With that promise Earth was given the promise of a light unto all men, a light that will lead us to our salvation if only we choose to accept that path.
Even if you are not a Christian, even if you’re not especially religious, if you claim another religion or none at all, the path that Christ walked when he was born into this world is a path from which we can all learn. It is one worthy of study and acceptance even if only as an example of the best way to live. Christ’s path is, indeed, a philosophy worthy of consideration for it is one based on service to your fellows, love for all, and a suppression of one’s selfishness in order to pursue a higher calling.
What could be a better path, even for the non-religious?
So, as we celebrate this Christmas Day, the day meant to memorialize the birth of Christ, and as we head into 2020 let us all strive to work harder to be of service to our fellows. Let us engage in those random acts of kindness that makes everyone’s lives so much more fulfilling–not to mention easier. Let us remember to say thank you to those who have done something for us and let us offer our own actions for others without expecting immediate repayment.
Let’s try and leave this place a bit better off than we found it.
I want to thank each and every one of you for having been such wonderfully loyal readers and for you folks that have only been recent visitors, may you find a home here for the upcoming days. We hope to give you a Christmas gift that never stops giving here at Publius Forum.
May God Bless you all and enjoy the day with your family and friends.
Merry Christmas and, if you don’t visit again before the end of the year, may you have a Happy New Year
Yours,
Warner Todd Huston
Publisher, PubliusForum.com
So, what is the true meaning of Christmas? Linus knows…
“I guess you were right, Linus. I shouldn’t have picked this
little tree,” said Charlie Brown. “Everything I do turns into
a disaster. I guess I don’t really know what Christmas is
all about. Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas
is all about?”
“Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about,”
said Linus. [Linus walks to center stage.]
“Lights, please.”
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding
in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them,
and the glory of the Lord shone round about them:
and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,
I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,
which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the
heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
good will toward men.
–Book 42, Luke (002:08-14)
The Bible, King James Version
[Linus picks up his blanket and shuffles off-stage.]
-By Warner Todd Huston
In 1982 NBC started broadcasting its “Christmas in Washington” program and would do so for several years afterward. But in its inaugural broadcast, the network featured a heartwarming clip of President Ronald Reagan reading a Christmas story to a group of children.
President Reagan chose to read A Solitary Life, which is a parable of the life of Jesus Christ.
In the clip, Reagan says that after nearly 2,000 years, Jesus today is “the centerpiece of much of the human race.” Reagan went on to note that all the armies, governments, and powers this world has created have not affected the world as powerfully as this “one solitary life.”
“I’ve always believed that the story of that young man, of Jesus, is a story of hope,” Reagan continued.
“If we live our lives for truth and for love — because that’s what He told us to do — and for God, we never have to be afraid. God will be with us. He’ll be a part of something much larger, much stronger, much more enduring than any force that has ever existed on this Earth.”
“God bless you, and Merry Christmas,” Reagan said.
The story Reagan read was written by Dr. James Allen Francis.
According to CelebratingHolidays.com:
Dr. James Allan Francis was born in Nova Scotia, Canada. He became a pastor at age twenty-one and served in ministry for the remainder of his life. His first pastorate was in New York City at the Riverside Baptist Church, and after serving in other varied pastorates in the East, he came to Los Angeles in 1914.1
Though he had a busy life as a pastor, Francis was able to publish a handful of books: Drops from a Living Fountain (1895), Christ’s Mould of Prayer (1924), and Christ is All And Other Sermons (1928). His publications are full of passionate encouragement for Christians to know their Lord, to rely on him, and to follow his example.
Francis’ most famous words, now known as “One Solitary Life,” originated as part of a sermon that he delivered on July 11, 1926 to the Baptist Young People’s Union at a Los Angeles Convention.2 A friend transcribed the message titled “Arise, Sir Knight,” and Dr. Francis published it that same year in a collection called The Real Jesus and Other Sermons.
Here is the text of the story:
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village as the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village.
He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty and then for three years was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never owned a home.
He never had a family.
He never went to college.
He never put his foot inside a big city.
He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born.
He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.
He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of his divine manhood.
While still a young man the tide of popular opinion turned against him.
His friends ran away.
One of them denied him.
Another betrayed him.
He was turned over to his enemies.
He went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed upon the cross between two thieves.
His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was
dying, and that was his coat.
When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today he is the center of the human race and the leader of the column of progress.
I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon the earth as powerfully as has this one solitary life.
Continue reading “WATCH: Ronald Reagan Reads the Story of the Life of Christ to Kids at White House”
-By Warner Todd Huston
It is that time of year again when left-wingers try to warp the Bible to support their anti-American ideals, and this time of year, they often abuse the birth of Christ by saying that Christ’s earthly parents, Joseph and Mary, were either homeless, were refugees, or were immigrants. But in truth, they were NONE of those things.
A few years ago, ABC chief political analyst Matthew Dowd jumped to his Twitter account to make the shop-worn and false liberal claim that Jesus Christ’s parents, Joseph and Mary, were “two immigrants” in Bethlehem in the tale of the first Christmas. It all amounts to fake news that is over 2,000 years old.
Going back thousands of years for his Christmas Eve fake news, Dowd skewed the Christmas nativity story by saying Joseph and Mary were “immigrants” who were turned away by many in the town. “Let us remember today,” Dowd wrote, “2 immigrants, a man, and his very pregnant wife, sought shelter & were turned away by many. She gave birth in a manger.”
This claim that Joseph and Mary were “immigrants” is a mischaracterization long used to push a modern-day policy of immigration amnesty. The left’s argument goes: If even Jesus Christ’s parents were “immigrants,” how can today’s American Christians be against open borders and amnesty?
But the truth is, the famed Biblical couple were not “immigrants.” Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem to register for what was mainly Caesar’s Internal Revenue Service. The pair had made their way to Bethlehem to register for a government census so that they could be assessed a tax bill.
Continue reading “Just Stop it! Joseph and Mary Were NOT ‘Refugees,’ ‘Immigrants,’ or ‘Homeless’–Stop Saying They Were”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Every year I post a piece about the shocking truth about the scam that is Kwanzaa. It is a racist holiday created by a rapist and torturer who has posed as a “professor.” This year will be no exception.
Kwanzaa, the purported “African” holiday celebrated only in the United States, is the ultimate politically correct holiday. It is little observed, even by our own African American community, of course, but those that do celebrate it are wholly unaware that this faux holiday was created in 1965 by a man with a very troubled past. For Kwanzaa’s creator, Maulana Karenga, has a violent, racist criminal record, and is even a rapist who was convicted of torturing his victims.
Each year we are treated to one gauzy, fluff piece after another about how great Kwanzaa is by one PC spewing columnist or the other. This year, for instance, a “scholar” who claims to study the “oppression” of blacks in America today insisted in a piece for the Associated Press that Kwanzaa is an “important” holiday that is a wondrous time for “communal self-affirmation.” Then there was 2015’s Dallas Morning News piece titled “Look forward to Kwanzaa celebrations with storytelling, music and more.” We even find such helpful sites as TeacherPlanet.com’s, “Kwanzaa Resources for Teachers.” And last year we got the happy talk from Illinois with City Plans Kwanzaa Celebration December 26. Yes, the world is filled with celebratory lionization of Kwanzaa.
But about a half dozen years ago, the Houston Chronicle got in the act with a piece by Leslie Casimir titled “Learning about Kwanzaa from the holiday’s creator.” This one, though, was a bit different than the usual how-great-is-Kwanzaa theme because this particular piece celebrated the inventor of the faux holiday, Maulana Karenga, himself. So, instead of merely celebrating the manufactured holiday, Casimir amazingly made a hero of the rapist, race monger and violent thug who created it! To Casimir, Kwanzaa creator “Maulana Karenga” was a hero.
Or you get large public corporations like ebay selling its users on Kwanza as happened in 2014.Here is a screen shot of an ebay user’s panel where Kwanza was pushed by the online auction giant.
To further the story about how wonderful Karenga was, Casimir also found a gullible parent who, with kid in tow, went to see the great man at a local community center.
Thomasine Johnson needed to get the record straight about Kwanzaa, a cultural holiday steeped in African traditions that celebrates family, ethnic pride and community.
With her 11-year-old grandson in tow, the Missouri City interior designer on Saturday brought her video camera to S.H.A.P.E. community center to hear from Father Kwanzaa “Maulana Karenga” in the flesh.”
But just like the manufactured holiday he invented out of whole cloth, this “Maulana Karenga” is also a false front created out of fluff and nonsense. As it happens his real name is not “Maulana Karenga,” but is instead Ronald McKinley Everett, AKA Maulana Ron Karenga, AKA Maulana Karenga. We’ll soon see that subterfuge, reinvention and smoke-and-mirrors are Karenga’s stock in trade.
In her piece, Casimir gave us her version of the history of this “holiday.” And the artifice has but a short history, at that.
Created in 1966 by Karenga, a professor of black studies at California State University at Long Beach, Kwanzaa was born out of the black freedom movement of the 1960s, when the Watts riots rocked Los Angeles. It starts the day after Christmas and ends on the first day of the new year.
Interestingly, Casimir employed the euphemism “black freedom movement” to describe the ideology of the group that Ronald McKinley Everett “Karenga” belonged to when he created Kwanzaa. In the 60s, Karenga was in an organization called US (as in “us” — blacks — against “them” — whites). US was a black power militant group that he founded, one that frequently clashed in violence with police and even other black power groups. Members of his group even killed two Black Panthers in 1969.
Yes, kindly professor Maulana Karenga, the murder-touting, segregationist, racist. What a role model for the kiddies he is, eh?
Casimir seemed not to understand why people would doubt this man, though.
Still, many people don’t know much about Kwanzaa or the elusive Karenga, who shuns giving interviews to the mainstream press.
Well, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t want to give too many interviews what with his record as a violent felon, and sexual criminal. And Karenga has a long criminal record. In 1971, for instance, Everett served time in jail for assault. By then Everett had changed his name to Maulana Ron Karenga and began to affect a pseudo African costume and act the part of a native African — even though he had been born in the USA.
Ron Karenga stands outside courtroom in Los Angeles, CA in May 29, 1971. The typewritten caption on the negative’s paper wrapper reads: “Ron Karenga enters courtroom where he was found guilty on four counts. On September 17, 1971, Karenga was sentenced to one to ten years in prison on counts of felonious assault and false imprisonment.”
It wasn’t mere assault Karenga was convicted of, either. It was the sexual assault and even torture that he perpetrated against some of his own female followers. At the time, The L.A. Times reported that he placed a hot soldering iron in one woman’s mouth and used a vise to crush another’s toe, of all things.
As writer Lynn Woolley wrote of Professor Karenga:
And so this is Kwanzaa. The militant past of the creator is now ignored in favor of the so-called seven principles of Nguza Saba, principles such as unity, family and self-determination that could have come from Bill Bennett’s Book of Virtues. The word “Kwanzaa” is Swahili, meaning something like “fresh fruits of harvest.”
No one remembers the part about “re-Africanization” or the sevenfold path of blackness that Dr. Karenga once espoused. Hardly anyone remembers the shootings, the beatings, the tortures and the prison terms that were once the center of his life. It’s just not PC to bring that sort of stuff up now that Kwanzaa is commercialized and making big bucks.
But Casimir offers us Karenga’s prattle, anyway, treating it as the advice of a sage:
“As part of the black freedom movement, we were using this to return to our history and culture,” Karenga said.
He spoke to a crowd of about 100 people ” young and old ” at the Third Ward community center, headed by Deloyd Parker, an avid promoter of Kwanzaa’s Afrocentric traditions and beliefs.
“We have to wake up that history, we have to remember ourselves in a more expansive way,” Karenga said. “To liberate ourselves as ghetto dwellers.”
In a day when the black middle class numbers in the millions and when more whites than blacks voted for a black man for president, for “Karenga” to claim that blacks are still relegated to the “ghettos” smacks of race baiting and trying to “keep hope alive” so that he can continue to cause hatred between whites and blacks. And each year the Old Media is all too happy to assist him in his faux “holiday” endeavor.
Happy Kwanzaa, indeed!
But maybe not everyone is fooled by a faux holiday created by a criminal? In 2015, for instance, Kalamazoo, Michigan decided to dispense with its public Kwanzaa celebration. In fact, few cities worry over much about this holiday these days, though some still do.
Even some African Americans are not fooled into accepting Kwanzaa. As Jenice Armstrong from Philadelphia wrote in 2010, the “truth is that Kwanzaa has never caught on with the majority of black Americans.”
Of course, if it wasn’t for an Old Media establishment that has given Karenga’s criminality a wholesale whitewashing, this faux holiday could never have gained as little traction it has. Put it this way; imagine if famed Ku Klux Klan member David Duke had created a holiday. Do you think the Old Media would have happily sold his creation to a misinformed public without mentioning Duke’s personal history? Not a chance, and rightfully so.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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As we all take the day off to be with family and friends, let us also remember to pray for and thank those Americans overseas in dangerous lands who cannot be home for the holiday.
May you all have a wonderful, relaxing day filled with the comfort of friends and family.
Also, please do take some time to look over our past work in the archives her at Publius. In the meantime, God bless you and have a Happy Thanksgiving and see you tomorrow. And we are thankful for your readership.
-By Warner Todd Huston
Our kids have been taught fake news about America’s first Thanksgiving. The Indians didn’t save the Pilgrims. Ending communism did.
It is simply untrue that the Pilgrims were able to celebrate their first Thanksgiving feast because the noble Indians saved them by showing them the ways of America. No, in reality, the Pilgrims were saved because they replaced their original communist system with a capitalist ideal.
William Bradford’s fellows came to the Americas to start a colony that would be a light unto all humanity, one based on a strict adherence to the Christian Bible. They wanted the opportunity to live as they desired, unique, and free from interference from the Church of England, the Crown, or British authorities.
Continue reading “THANKSGIVING: Dumping Communism Saved the Pilgrims, Not the Indians”
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.
Continue reading “Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation”
By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation, October 3, 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 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 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 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.
Continue reading “George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation”
Delivered March 6, 1799 by President John Adams
As no truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration, nor any more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a deep sense and a due acknowledgment of the governing providence of a Supreme Being and of the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher of hearts and righteous distributer of rewards and punishments are conducive equally to the happiness and rectitude of individuals and to the well-being of communities; as it is also most reasonable in itself that men who are made capable of social acts and relations, who owe their improvements to the social state, and who derive their enjoyments from it, should, as a society, make their acknowledgments of dependence and obligation to Him who hath endowed them with these capacities and elevated them in the scale of existence by these distinctions; as it is likewise a plain dictate of duty and a strong sentiment of nature that in circumstances of great urgency and seasons of imminent danger earnest and particular supplications should be made to Him who is able to defend or to destroy; as, moreover, the most precious interests of the people of the United States are still held in jeopardy by the hostile designs and insidious acts of a foreign nation, as well as by the dissemination among them of those principles, subversive of the foundations of all religious, moral, and social obligations, that have produced incalculable mischief and misery in other countries; and as, in fine, the observance of special seasons for public religious solemnities is happily calculated to avert the evils which we ought to deprecate and to excite to the performance of the duties which we ought to discharge by calling and fixing the attention of the people at large to the momentous truths already recited, by affording opportunity to teach and inculcate them by animating devotion and giving to it the character of a national act:
Continue reading “President John Adams Thanksgiving: A Proclamation Recommending a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer”
America is a singularly different nation where it concerns our military veterans, and not just on Veterans Days. We love them. We even have a national holiday to honor them. This is not so in most of the rest of the world. Elsewhere soldiers are not as loved as they are here in these great United States.
Is that because the United States is the Sparta of the world, loving war more than anything else? Hardly. In fact it’s because our soldiers bring peace wherever they go, not perpetual war.
In other countries, soldiers are often the dregs of society, living off the people while at the same time lording over them with machine guns and violence.
In other countries the military is feared by both the people and the government because all too often the army is used to take power and steal away the government for its own aggrandizement. There is no accident that the word “coup” is one rarely spoken in the USA unless when viewing foreign news.
In other countries when people see soldiers they fear them, they loathe them. In other countries they don’t want to sit near soldiers on public transportation, they avoid eye contact. Here we shake their hand and ask if they need anything.
In the USA we respect our soldiers because as a rule they respect We The People as much as they respect the law.
When an American sees a soldier an American feels pride, not fear. When an American learns of a fellow’s service, an American is compelled to thank him for that service.
So, from us to you, our dear military veterans, we thank you. We thank you for putting your lives on hold while serving us, while making sure we are safe and able to go about our business unafraid of danger, and time and again for putting your own safety at risk.
Happy Veterans Day to you all.
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-By Warner Todd Huston
Today is Columbus Day and once again liberals are out to erase part of American history and western culture.
Columbus is, of course, the Italian mariner who claimed the Americas for Spain in the late 1400s. He proved that the Old World actually could reach across the vast oceans — once thought un-navigable — and link this planet among humanity.
Naturally the left is lashing out in destruction and violence, as they always do. They are destroying monuments to Columbus and his feat all across the country and forcing liberal-infested cities to cancel traditional Columbus Day celebrations.
Liberals everywhere are seeking to destroy Columbus and replace his “day” with something as absurd as “Indigenous Peoples Day.”
Of course, it is ignorant to celebrate “Indigenous Peoples Day” because the whole idea of such a “day” presupposes that the “indigenous peoples” were universally peaceful and proud people who the invading Europeans “ruined.”
This premise, though, is entirely false.
Continue reading “It’s Happy Columbus Day, not ‘Indigenous People’s Day’”
We are taking this grand holiday off to celebrate the birth of our wonderful country and the freedoms from which we’ve all benefited. And around here it’s Independence Day NOT “July 4th.” We don’t celebrate a number we celebrate an event, one of the most glorious events in human history: the birth of our nation.
Have a wonderful holiday, thanks for being a loyal Publius Forum reader and God Bless America.
Warner Todd Huston
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today we celebrate Independence Day, the day we stepped out on our own and formally declared our intention to become our own nation and not a vassal state of England. Unfortunately, too many people keep calling this day “the July Fourth holiday.” But, we don’t celebrate a number or a month. We celebrate our independence as a nation. So, I urge everyone to stop disrespecting our nation’s birthday by calling it “July Fourth” and here is why…
It is well known that John Adams had imagined that July second would be the day that future generations of Americans would remember as their day of independence from England, the nation’s birthday, if you will. It was, after all, on the second that it was proclaimed “(T)hat these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
But it was two days later that those gathered in defiance to the King of England declared a “Declaration of Independency” thereby adopting the famed document that carefully delineated the natural rights by which they claimed independence followed by a list of grievances that would explain why they invoked those rights.
So what are we celebrating? Is it our birth as a nation or are we celebrating the document of Independence? Early celebrations were mixed and a bit confused on that point. Not only that but celebrations on July fourth weren’t even that common for quite some time after the Revolution was over. At first, not many felt a need to celebrate something that had only recently happened and was over. It was time to move on from war in many American’s eyes.
Then again, not many Americans had much interest in the Declaration itself until the 1790s when the emerging parties began to vie for bragging rights over who wrote it. The Democratic Republicans proudly held that their leader, Thomas Jefferson, was the author of the document while the Federalists reminded everyone that their leader, John Adams, was also a member of the committee that drafted the document and that he, as much as Jefferson, had his stamp on the Declaration of Independence.
Continue reading “Dear America, Stop Calling This The ‘July Fourth Holiday.” Here’s Why…”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 243 years as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “Fourth of July” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth” holiday. We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsteady steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man or government can take away from us, rights no man can legitimately prevent us from observing.
Contrary to the God-averse America we have devolved into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
Continue reading “243 Independence Day Celebrations and Counting: But What Does it all Mean?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
John Adams was one of the truly indispensable men among our founding fathers. He was the man that wrote one of the first fully written out Constitutions in human history when he wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts. He wrote a seminal book on government that helped inform the founders of our nation, he was an ambassador to France and other European nations, he was our first vice president, our second president, and more.
In fact, Adams was at the center of one of the incidents that set the tone for our national character. When the Redcoats responsible for the Boston Massacre were put under arrest, John Adams stepped forward to represent the Redcoats in court. Many of his fellow patriots were amazed at this offer, some even incensed at Adams for doing so. But Adams said that the rule of law was far more important than merely making points with the home crowd and the Redcoats deserved to have competent representation.
Continue reading “Our Second President, John Adams, Recalls the First Independence Day”
As we take the day off to celebrate Memorial Day, we wish you and your family a great day.
-By Warner Todd Huston
To honor our troops for Memorial Day this year, I am going to share this story about their mettle. What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly made to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13, 2010. While leading his platoon on a combat patrol, Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan. Lt. Kelly was only 29-years-old.
Giving Thanks for Our Warriors
“Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths… No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make… for you….
“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi… Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines… Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds… But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
Continue reading “Memorial Day Special: We Must Never Forget What Our American Troops Are Made Of”
-By Warner Todd Huston
“From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”–Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
As we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day to pause in thanks for the sacrifices made by millions of Americans who died while fighting to preserve freedom, a documentary called “These Hallowed Grounds” reminds us that our war dead are not just interred here at home, but are spread across the world on battlefields almost lost to the memory of far too many of us.
When we think of our military cemeteries, those final resting places of so many American heroes, we usually think of Arlington National Cemetery, certainly. But do we think of the hundreds of American military cemeteries in such places as France, the Philippines, and other nations across the world? Sadly, not many of us do.
If you are like many of us, you may not be very well informed about all the many American cemeteries erected to memorialize our legions of war dead. To correct that deficit the PBS documentary “These Hallowed Grounds” is an excellent way to learn about these bucolic and solemn memorials.
Most Americans know of the World War Two cemetery at Omaha Beach, Normandy, site of one of the 1944 D-Day landings. But there are some twenty-one other cemeteries in eight other countries memorializing our dead from World Wars One and Two and the documentary tells the powerful tale of many of them.
Our many war cemeteries are maintained by the U.S. government’s American Battle Monuments Commission and contain monuments to some 125,000 American war dead. The names of another 94,000 missing soldiers are inscribed into the Walls Of The Missing at these locations and this film takes viewers on an important journey across the world to see and learn about them.
Continue reading “Remembering the Thousands of American Soldiers Buried in U.S. Military Cemeteries Across the World”
-By Warner Todd Huston
A few years after the Civil War as the nation started upon its long road toward reconciliation, rebuilding, and healing the wife of one of the war’s union generals noticed the touching devotion of Confederate widows, wives and their children as each year they came together to place flowers and little flags at the graves of their fallen. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan was so moved by the devotion she witnessed that she urged her husband, Illinois General John A. “Blackjack” Logan, to look into creating what was to become Memorial Day.
General Logan was a Senator from Illinois and eventually became a candidate for Vice President on the 1884 Republican ticket, losing to Grover Cleveland and another Illinoisan, Vice President Adlai Stevenson. But before all that Logan was instrumental in creating Decoration Day, the celebration of the nation’s war dead that eventually became Memorial Day.
The following is the general order that Logan issued in 1868.
General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
Continue reading “The Illinois Civil War General Who Helped Create Memorial Day”
Merry Christmas, 2018
“And unto you a child is born.” With that promise Earth was given the promise of a light unto all men, a light that will lead us to our salvation if only we choose to accept that path.
Even if you are not a Christian, even if you’re not especially religious, if you claim another religion or none at all, the path that Christ walked when he was born into this world is a path from which we can all learn. It is one worthy of study and acceptance even if only as an example of the best way to live. Christ’s path is, indeed, a philosophy worthy of consideration for it is one based on service to your fellows, love for all, and a suppression of one’s selfishness in order to pursue a higher calling.
What could be a better path, even for the non-religious?
So, as we celebrate this Christmas Day, the day meant to memorialize the birth of Christ, and as we head into 2017 let us all strive to work harder to be of service to our fellows. Let us engage in those random acts of kindness that makes everyone’s lives so much more fulfilling–not to mention easier. Let us remember to say thank you to those who have done something for us and let us offer our own actions for others without expecting immediate repayment.
Let’s try and leave this place a bit better off than we found it.
I want to thank each and every one of you for having been such wonderfully loyal readers and for you folks that have only been recent visitors, may you find a home here for the upcoming days. We hope to give you a Christmas gift that never stops giving here at Publius Forum.
May God Bless you all and enjoy the day with your family and friends.
Merry Christmas and, if you don’t visit again before the end of the year, may you have a Happy New Year
Yours,
Warner Todd Huston
Publisher, PubliusForum.com