George Washington’s 470-word 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation — the U.S. government’s first official Thanksgiving observance — came a year after the approval of the Constitution and four days after the first session of Congress closed down. Washington’s government and Congress had achieved quite a lot that year, setting up government departments, creating a revenue system and the Customs Service, organizing federal courts, etc. He strikingly doesn’t brag about it, but instead asks the public to join him in seeking forgiveness for national misdeeds, living up to responsibilities, and trying to do better:
“… that we may unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions — to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually — [and] to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed.”
Thanksgiving is many things for us today, but none perhaps more important than ensuring our unique national civic life, a nation of laws and not men, is a blessing for each of us.
