We tend to associate Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims in 1621. Shiny square buckles on boxy black shoes and a feast with the Indians, but in fact, this cherished national holiday actually began centuries later, in the midst of the greatest conflict to ever engulf the United States of America.
In early October of 1863, fresh off of a costly, but eventually decisive, victory in the Civil War’s battle of Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln decreed that he would ‘set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving,’ the randomness of which, in fairness, does sound a bit like Nate Bargatze’s Geroge Washington on ‘Saturday Night Live.’
But remarkably, even as the cannons were still hot, even in the face of another two years of brutal destruction and loss, Lincoln was already thinking about how the country could once again be united.
In his proclamation he does, ‘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 Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.’
Peace, harmony, tranquility and union. How lacking have these been in our society for the past decade? And while we have not fought with screaming hot lead, we have, with our words, and our actions, made strangers of each other.
There are leading TV personalities such as MSNBC’s Joy Reid all but urging her viewers to cut off family and friends who voted for Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the right too often accuses those on the left of having a woke mind virus, of not just being wrong, but somehow fundamentally broken.
But if Lincoln, despite the depravities committed by both sides in the Civil War, could envision a future in which the men of the blue and the gray could sit and dine together peaceably, then surely, we can.
Maybe it is fitting that this holiday, born of fraternal conflict, serves as the symbolic front lines, so to speak, of our political battles. We have built the cliché of the MAGA-loving uncle and the wine mom cousin screaming at each other about immigration over frustrated grandma’s stuffing.
And it is precisely because Americans so cherish Thanksgiving that we use it in this rhetorical way, as an avatar, as if to say, ‘things are so bad that it’s even ruining Thanksgiving.’
In my travels throughout the election, I asked many people I met if they had relationships with family or friends that had been strained by politics. Many, if not most, said yes to varying degrees.
‘Sometimes I just have to block people on Facebook,’ some of them told me. One woman, a Republican, said, ‘I try to avoid politics, but it’s not just politics, it’s who we are.’ Meanwhile, I have had Democrats insist that the supposed dangers of Trump are a moral, not a political issue.
Well, I’ve got some news, and a little perspective. No matter how much one hates President-elect Donald Trump or the woke left, it is nothing compared to searing hatred felt for Lincoln south of the Mason-Dixon Line during the Civil War and the years that followed.
And yet today, it is Lincoln who stands alone in the pantheon of American greatness, unblemished by slavery or the petty foibles of the founders, and so it is right and just that he gave us Thanksgiving, our truly American national holiday.
There are signs, after the raw-and-punishing election of the past year, that many Americans are ready to move on from animosity, to mend fences, and to get back to treating our fellow man as human beings, not members of a political movement.
Thanksgiving is an excellent time to begin such a journey back to peace, harmony, tranquility and union.
If all of us made one call, sent one text, or sat down, full before the fire with one family member we disagree with, that could be a massive step to restoring the comity and good faith we have lost.
And it is precisely because Americans so cherish Thanksgiving that we use it in this rhetorical way, as an avatar, as if to say, ‘things are so bad that it’s even ruining Thanksgiving.’
Lincoln opened this door for us 161 years ago, and ever since, without him getting much credit, this holiday, above others, has stood fast in our hearts.
This year, let us allow it to be more, let it be an end to all the recent anger and agony, and the beginning of a new and generous phase of American political life.
Abraham Lincoln, who sacrificed all for us, would have it no other way.