By Joseph Tartakovsky Posted November 23, 2005

Though celebrated privately in homes, Thanksgiving is a public opportunity for Americans to bring the sacred into our lives. Our two greatest presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, understood this connection between the public and the private in their proclamations of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. They were proclaiming a holy day, a day for prayer and recognition of Almighty God's authority over man. Religious liberty is one of the blessings of constitutional government we must be thankful for. In this spirit, presidents, with the approval of Congress, have provided a public occasion for prayer—which is of course what a thanks-giving is.

We forget too easily the meaning of this national holiday as it was first established by George Washington on October 3, 1789 and reaffirmed as we know it today by Abraham Lincoln on October 3, 1863, exactly 74 years later. A mere glance at their Thanksgiving proclamations reminds us of the noblest purposes of government, including its greatest endeavors—fighting war and educating its citizens.

A close reading of these two messages reveals a careful and subtle teaching about the higher purposes of government and of human life. Washington urged prayer "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...." Prayer should also lead this nation of "civil and religious liberty" to "promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among [other nations] and us...." God and the human mind are in alliance. We are most human when we honor our duties, to our country and to our Creator, and the wisdom that unifies these duties.

Even in the midst of "the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged," Lincoln first paints a picture of a prosperous, free, and indeed flourishing land. These 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." At the end of the proclamation, Lincoln asks for prayers of thanks but also with expressions of "humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience." Thus do we "commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers" in the war. Have we, as those Americans did, taken to heart the Thanksgiving prayers Father Abraham urged upon us?

As our soldiers fight and die in Iraq and around the world, we should remember the wartime wisdom of Lincoln and the founding wisdom of Washington on Thanksgiving Day. Guided by prayer, we should recall our higher purposes. We enjoy the fruits of our leisure this Thursday on account of the wisdom and sacrifices of others present and past.