Many people pass it everyday without giving it a second thought I’m sure. It’s just a flagpole. I noticed it myself about twenty years ago, but it wasn’t until last year that I parked my car and walked over to the flagpole which is perched on a concrete base-and really looked at it. It’s located on Detroit’s West side at Outer Drive and Lahser Street in the center median. I immediately noticed that the base is in sad shape. The concrete is broken in several spots-even chunks of concrete are missing. It didn’t look like anyone had done maintenance on the thing for ages. There is a dedication inscribed on it’s side. Apparently citizens provided for the monument to honor those in the military in 1943- that’s 66 years ago! No wonder it’s falling apart. One of the sides of the square base has additional words to note-namely, a partial quote from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: “-That this nation, under God, Shall have a new birth of freedom-And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” After reading that inscription I was newly reminded that monuments will eventually crumble and be destroyed, but concepts like ‘freedom’ and ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’ are immortal. It’s the words-not the concrete and the metal, of a monument that matter.
President Lincoln
It’s common for folks to think about Pilgrims and Native Americans during the Thanksgiving holiday. We learned in school that at that first Thanksgiving they sat down together and shared in the harvest. I think the date was 1621. Many people may not know that it was President Abraham Lincoln who made Thanksgiving a national holiday by issuing a proclamation October 3, 1863. The proclamation established that the last Thursday of November be observed as a day of “Thanksgiving and praise.” The proclamation read as followed:
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 so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled 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 theatre of military conflict; while that theatre 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 defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe 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 battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel 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 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 Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
Mail this post
Tags: abraham Lincoln, proclamation, Thanksgiving
