Special to WorldTribune.com

By Bill Federer, November 27, 2019

During the days of America’s founding, colonies would declare days of prayer when times were bad; days of fasting when times were real bad; and days of thanksgiving when things turned around. ….

This is evidence that colonists were not “deists” who believed God set the laws of nature in place and then let everything run on its own. America’s founders believed in a living relationship with God where:

⦁ If people sinned, He would call them to repent;

⦁ If they did not repent, He would send judgment; and

⦁ Then when they repented and believed, He would send deliverance, health, and blessings.

The first “National” Day of Thanksgiving after the signing of the Declaration of Independence was Nov. 1, 1777, to celebrate British General Burgoyne surrendering over 6,000 soldiers at the Battle of Saratoga:

“The grateful feeling of their hearts … join the penitent confession of their manifold sins … that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance … and … under the providence of Almighty God … secure for these United States the greatest of all human blessings, independence and peace.”

John Paul Jones commanded the Bonhomme Richard in a sea battle with the 50-gun British frigate HMS Serapis. In the midst of the fighting, the British commander yelled, asking if the Americans were ready to surrender. John Paul Jones shouted back, “I have not yet begun to fight!”

When the British surrendered on Sept. 23, 1779, the Continental Congress declared a Day of Thanksgiving, recommending that the thirteen states do likewise.

In accordance with this, Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson proclaimed for Virginia, Nov. 11, 1779:
“Congress … hath thought proper … to recommend to the several States … a day of public and solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for his mercies, and of Prayer, for the continuance of his favor … That He would go forth with our hosts and crown our arms with victory …

Traitor Benedict Arnold planned to betray West Point to the British on the exact day General Washington was scheduled to visit, ensuring his capture. When the plot was thwarted, the Continental Congress proclaimed a Day of Thanksgiving, Oct. 18, 1780:

“In the late remarkable interposition of His watchful providence, in the rescuing the person of our Commander-in-Chief and the army from imminent dangers, at the moment when treason was ripened for execution …

it is therefore recommended … a Day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer … to confess our unworthiness … and to offer fervent supplications to the God of all grace … to cause the knowledge of Christianity to spread over all the earth.”

After British General Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Congress proclaimed a Day of Thanksgiving, Oct. 11, 1782:

“It being the indispensable duty of all nations … to offer up their supplications to Almighty God … the United States in Congress assembled … do hereby recommend it to the inhabitants of these states in general, to observe … the last Thursday … of November next, as a Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for all his mercies.”

Congress passed the Bill of Rights, which included the First Amendment, it requested President George Washington issue a National Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.

Washington wrote Oct. 3, 1789:

“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor — and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a Day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness’ …

Now, therefore, I do recommend … Thursday, the 26TH DAY of NOVEMBER … to be devoted by the People of these United States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be …

That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble Thanks … for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government … particularly the national one now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed … to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue.”

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first “Annual” National Day of Thanksgiving, Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 1863:

“In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity …

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea 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 … they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers 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, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Secretary of State.”

Through the decades, Presidents and leaders have declared National Days of Thanksgiving, many of which are contained in the book Prayers and Presidents —  Inspiring Faith from Leaders of the Past.

Continuing this tradition, President Donald J. Trump wrote in his Thanksgiving Proclamation, Nov. 23, 2017:

“On Thanksgiving Day, as we have for nearly four centuries, Americans give thanks to Almighty God for our abundant blessings.

We gather with the people we love to show gratitude for our freedom, for our friends and families, and for the prosperous Nation we call home …

In July 1620, more than 100 Pilgrims boarded the Mayflower, fleeing religious persecution and seeking freedom and opportunity in a new and unfamiliar place. These dauntless souls arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the freezing cold of December 1620. They were greeted by sickness and severe weather, and quickly lost 46 of their fellow travelers …

Those who endured the incredible hardship of their first year in America, however, had many reasons for gratitude. They had survived. They were free. And, with the help of the Wampanoag tribe, and a bountiful harvest, they were regaining their health and strength …

In thanks to God for these blessings, the new governor of the Plymouth Colony, William Bradford, proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and gathered with the Wampanoag tribe for three days of celebration.

For the next two centuries, many individual colonies and states, primarily in the Northeast, carried on the tradition of fall Thanksgiving festivities …

We can see, in the courageous Pilgrims who stood on Plymouth Rock in new land, the intrepidness that lies at the core of our American spirit.

Just as the Pilgrims did, today Americans stand strong, willing to fight for their families and their futures, to uphold our values, and to confront any challenge …
As one people, we seek God’s protection, guidance, and wisdom, as we stand humbled by the abundance of our great Nation and the blessings of freedom, family, and faith.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 23, 2017, as a National Day of Thanksgiving.

I encourage all Americans to gather, in homes and places of worship, to offer a prayer of thanks to God for our many blessings.”

  American leaders have called for days of prayer when things were good, bad or ugly