Virginia was the hotbed of anti-Thanksgiving sentiment. In 1853, Governor Joseph Johnson declined to declare a day of Thanksgiving for his state, citing Thomas Jefferson's firm doctrine of separating church and state. Johnson's successor, fire-brand Henry A. Wise, was even more intransigent. In 1856, he received the same annual letter from Sarah Josepha Hale that every other governor did, encouraging him to declare a general day of Thanksgiving. Wise not only declined to make the proclamation, but fired back a testy refusal.
"This theatrical national claptrap of Thanksgiving," he declared, "has aided other causes in setting thousands of pulpits to preaching 'Christian politics' instead of humbly letting the carnal Kingdom alone and preaching singly Christ crucified."
Anti-Thanksgiving sentiment wasn't confined to Virginia. In 1855, William H. Holcomb, a homeopathic physician in Natchez, Mississippi, recorded in his diary, "This was Thanksgiving day...I am sorry that the Yankee custom has crept in among us. I object to it because it makes gratitude to God a matter of civil ordinance."
