When the ‘official’ Thanksgiving Day rolls around in November, a lot of emphasis is usually placed on Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Day proclamations during the War.  Louis Avallone provides us with the case-in-point:

‘And Abraham Lincoln — in the middle of the Civil War — established Thanksgiving as an annual national holiday. Think about that. In the darkest chapter of American history, Lincoln understood that gratitude was not a luxury. It was a necessity’ (‘Why America Still Needs a Holiday Built on Gratitude,’ thehayride.com).

What is implied in that emphasis, whether consciously or not, is that Southerners of bygone days were so depraved and wicked that they did not and could not offer similar offerings of thanksgiving to God, unlike the Yankees who were unswervingly righteous.  There is a lot of untruth in those assumptions.

First, the Yanks were not paragons of pure and undefiled Christianity.  Lincoln himself was not a Christian (though he used the language of the Holy Scriptures to fool voters), and many of the Northern elite were not Christian either, having embraced various false teachings – Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, etc.

Second, as a testimony of their character, Lincoln and the North are responsible for overturning the old constitutional order of decentralized, limited government and replacing it with the centralized oligarchy we have come to know and dislike:

‘ . . . the constitution of the Founding Fathers, which guaranteed states’ rights and a power-limited government in Washington D.C., became crippled as a result of the emergence of the Republican Party in 1854, which sought a centralised Union and favoured the establishment of a powerful federal government in Washington D.C., both, of which, the reader learns in depth, contravened everything that the Founding Fathers believed in. The situation became compounded with the election in 1861 of a dangerous, power-hungry individual as president: Lincoln. According to Smith, then, and only then, did the South decide that secession was a necessity because the Republic of the Founding Fathers was dead.

‘Smith quotes Jefferson Davis during his inaugural speech in Richmond in 1862: “The experiment instituted by our revolutionary fathers, of a voluntary Union of sovereign States for purposes specified in a solemn compact, had been perverted by those who, feeling power and forgetting right, were determined to respect no law [except] their own will…to place us under the despotism of numbers…The tyranny of an unbridled majority, the most odious and least responsible form of despotism.” Smith says that: “This new Republican party only concerned itself with representing Northern interests . . .”’ (Marcus Papadopoulos, ‘Abe’s Civil War Narrative Meets its Waterloo,’ abbevilleinstitute.org).

Third, giving more evidence of the Northern character, after unlawfully and rapaciously invading the South, the Northern Army moved quickly to do the same thing to the Native Tribes of the western States and territories:

‘No sooner than Sherman and Sheridan had raped and pillaged the Confederacy than they were sicced on the Plains Indians,  Ralph K. Andrist chronicles their extermination in his book, The Long Death:  The Last Days of the Plains Indian’ (Dr Paul Craig Roberts, ‘Thanksgiving’s Origin as a National Holiday,’ lewrockwell.com).

Fourth, there are many proclamations during the War from Southern mouths and pens seeking the help of God and thanking Him for His abundant blessings.  Here are some lines from a couple of those proclamations from Dixie’s leader in those days, President Jefferson Davis:

‘It is meet that, as people who acknowledge the supremacy of the living God, we should be ever mindful of our dependence on Him, and should remember that to Him alone can we trust our deliverance, that to him is due the devout thankfulness for signal mercies bestowed on us, and that by prayer alone can we hope to receive continued manifestation of that protecting care which has hitherto shielded us in the midst of trials and dangers. In obedience to this precept, we have from time to time been gathered together with prayers and thanksgiving, and He has been graciously pleased to hear our supplications, and to grant abundant exhibitions of His favor to our arms and our people.

‘ . . . Under these circumstances it is my privilege to invite you once more to meet together and prostrate yourselves in humble supplication to Him who has been our constant and never-failing support in the past, and to whose protection and guidance we trust for the future’ (‘Which day did Jefferson Davis declare to be for fasting, humiliation, and prayer?,’ gratefulamericanfoundation.org).

‘It is meet that the people of the Confederate States should, from time to time, assemble to acknowledge their dependence on Almighty God, to render devout thanks for His manifold blessings, to worship His Holy name, to bend in prayer at His footstool, and to accept with reverent submission the chastening of His All-wise and All-merciful Providence.

‘Let us, then, in temples and in fields, unite our voices in recognizing, with adoring gratitude, the manifestations of His protecting care in the many signal victories with which our arms have been crowned, in the fruitfulness with which our land has been blessed, and in the unimpaired energy and fortitude with which He has inspired our hearts and strengthened our arms in resistance to the iniquitous designs of our enemies’ (‘PROCLAMATION APPOINTING A DAY FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP, Sun, Nov 27, 1864,’ dsl.richmond.edu).

Fifth, as Jeff LeJeune rightly pointed out, there are Thanksgiving traditions in North America that precede the officially sanctioned Yankee version.  One of those also began in the South, in Virginia, a couple of years before the oft-referenced New England event (4 December 1619, to be exact).

Now, it should be rather obvious that the South has a history that she should not be ashamed of.  But the Yankee propagandists have done their best to make Southerners despise their past, their ancestors, their very identity as a unique culture within the union of States.  That is a travesty.

Yet we have heard Mr Avallone proclaim many times on American Ground Radio how proud he is of his Italian heritage.  All we would ask is that he and others who champion the views of Lincoln and the North, or who value their cultural patrimony from Europe, etc., allow Southerners to be as proud of their heritage as they are of theirs.

However that turns out, we hope all Southerners, following the good example of our ancestors, will never cease to repeat the words of the saints – ‘Glory to God for all things!’ – and to sing God’s praises for all His gifts to us, and especially for the gift of the Church.  In the words of a wonderful Orthodox saint of Serbia, Nikolai Velimirovich:

‘The mystery of the Incarnation was not known to the angels before it took place. And all the other mysteries connected with the mystery of the Incarnation were also unknown to the angels until they saw them revealed in the Church. Therefore the Church is a new revelation, even for the holy angels. The Church is a new revelation of the wisdom and power of God and of His love for man. On the other hand, it is also a new revelation of man’s love for God, and man’s struggle. Even the angels themselves did not foresee how much God would humble Himself or how much man would be uplifted. This was shown in the Church, and through the Church it was proclaimed to the angels.  . . .  O my brethren, the two greatest works of God that have been revealed up to now are the creation of the world and the creation of the Church. In both works, brethren, man is the main object of God’s love. Let us be thankful with our every breath to the Most-gracious God. O Gracious God, O Compassionate God, to Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen’ (The Prologue of Ohrid, ‘November 15,’ ochrid.org; bolding added).