Proclamation 97

Posted on February 10, 2022

Proclamation 97—Appointing a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer

March 30, 1863

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 30th day of March, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State .

Source: Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation 97—Appointing a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/203143

Dr. Gauss’ Note: At the time of President Lincoln’s Proclamation, the Union forces were losing the war against the Confederacy. Lincoln knew that a divided nation could not stand for long and it was essential for the Union to prevail. Not long after Lincoln’s call for humiliation, fasting, and prayer on April 30, Union forces were able to win two major battles that destroyed the Confederacy. The first was the long siege of Vicksburg where Confederate troops controlled the movement of troops and supplies along the Mississippi River. The battle raged from May 18 to July 4, 1863, with the Union army of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant overcoming the Confederate troops of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton. This gave the Union complete control of the Mississippi River and cut the Confederate forces off from the West.

To the north, Gen. Robert E. Lee decided to advance on Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, believing that a sound victory there would cut off the Union and force them to surrender. However, the same day Vicksburg fell to the Union, Gen. Lee was retreating to Virginia after his sound defeat at Gettysburg on July 3 at the hands of Maj. Gen. George Meade and his Army of the Potomac.

With these two major victories for the Union forces, as well as those in Arkansas and Tennessee, the winds of war turned decidedly in the Union’s favor.

Today, 159 years later, America once again is on the brink of a civil war; a division of thought, philosophy, spiritual wellness and rule of law. We are living in a very dangerous time; the most dangerous in the nation’s history. It is a time when the government that is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, for the people” has turned against the people.

I have no allusions that the current occupant of the White House will be as insightful, spiritual or concerned for the nation’s survival as President Lincoln. Division seems to be his mantra and purpose.

However, the pastors and Christian leaders across America have an opportunity to do the same: to call for a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer; a call for repentance on behalf of the Church and the country. What better day, than April 30, 2022, to commemorate a time when our young nation desperately needed God’s intervention. We need His intervention more now than ever before. But, is it too late?

Tags: America's division, American immorality, National Day of Prayer, Prayer for America, Presidential Politics