Thursday Teacups And Tea Things, Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation

Welcome to Thursday Teacups and Tea Things.  I am also joining Vintage Thingie Thursday with Coloradolady and Teacup Thursday with Miss Spenser. This is my pre Thanksgiving Thursday Teacups post as next Thursday IS Thanksgiving!  I am still in the fall mode, and was thinking of the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving so choes this Alfred Meakin, England brown transferware nautical themed ironstone teacup in a pattern called Fair Winds from the 1950s.

I love the sailing ships, the fantastic depiction of the Fair Winds, like an early nautical chart and the Elizabethan couple. Having seen the Golden Hind on the Thames in London, I can't imagine what it was like to sail an unknown sea in a ship not much larger than local fishing vessels. I have crossed the Atlantic several times on cruise ships and an twice on an ocean liner the Queen Mary 2, and we had 25 foot seas. How they ever did it, I don't know! Braver than I could ever be!


For more info on the Fair Winds teacup at Antiques And Teacups, click on the photos.


Now fast forward 200+ years to 1863 for my Vintage Thingie Thursday. I'd call this vintage or antique enough. I love this Thanksgiving Proclamation made by President Abraham Lincoln during the civil war. It still resonates today...

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

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 in the theatre of the 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, 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 seas 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, comment to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or su fferers 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. 

Happy Thanksgiving if we don't chat before then. Here is a linky for Thursday Teacups And Tea Things. I'd love you to join in!

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
For best results, use HTML mode to edit this section of the post.