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WHAT DID ABRAHAM LINCOLN THINK OF GOD,
PRAYER AND HIS COUNTRY?
 
Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day
Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1863
The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The
Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast
day was observed.


By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.


Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all
the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer
and humiliation.
And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess
their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and
to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are
blessed whose God is the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this
world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted
upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the
recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We
have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have
forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have
vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and
virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of
redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and
forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my
proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and
prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their
several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble
discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry
of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of
our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness 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 thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and
of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.