Transcript
Dave Ramsey (0:00)
Hey, guys, Black Friday week is here with five days of deals starting at just $12.
Ken Coleman (0:06)
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Dave Ramsey (0:28)
Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Rams Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Ken Coleman, Ramsey, personality number one, bestselling author and host of the Ken Coleman show, is my co host today. So in the 1860s, there was a famous poet, a lady named Sarah Hale. She was the editor of a book called Goody's Lady's Book. She penned the famous nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little lamb. And for 17 years, beginning in 1846, she wrote to the President of the United States. And she was influential and known, so they would have received her letters. Plus, back then, people actually could just walk into the White House. It was a different world, of course. And for 17 years, she would write to the President as a well known figure, asking the President to formalize a day of thanksgiving as a national holiday in the middle of the Civil War. Eighteen months before the Civil War was to end in 1863, Abraham Lincoln decided to do that and his secretary of State, Seward, who wrote a lot of his speeches with Lincoln. Lincoln was known for his ability to speak, but Seward did a lot of his writing. And Seward wrote out the proclamation. And the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, declared that on October 3, 1963 or 1863, that Thanksgiving is going to be a national holiday. Here's the proclamation. The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of such extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations. Order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict. While that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union, needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle or the ship. The ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements and the mines as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals. Have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, Notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield. And the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor. Is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human council hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They 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 one voice, by the whole American people. 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 to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, 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 employ 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, tranquility, and union. In testimony whereof, I've hereto set my hand and cause the seal of the United States to be affixed by President Abraham Lincoln. I read this every year, and I have for almost 30 years on Thanksgiving on this show. Because I'm a cornball and I love stuff like this. And there's two things that never cease to strike me about this, Ken. One is, I just wish we could speak like this.