[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 46 (Friday, March 29, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E495]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            DAY OF NATIONAL HUMILIATION, FASTING, AND PRAYER

                                 ______


                         HON. THOMAS M. BARRETT

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 29, 1996

  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to submit 
excerpts from President Lincoln's proclamation for a day of national 
humiliation, fasting, and prayer which was intended to promote a 
national day of healing and reflection after turbulent times. Mr. Vern 
Ihm, a constituent of mine, brought President Lincoln's proclamation to 
my attention and thought President Lincoln's message is still relevant 
today. In keeping with the spirit of reflection I would like to enter 
excepts of President Lincoln's proclamation into the Record.

       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 repentence 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, in so much as we know that, by His divine law, 
     nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and 
     chastisement 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 rational 
     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 powers 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 
     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 necessary 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 Tuesday, 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 the day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to 
     unite, it 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 onto that solemn occasion.
       All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us 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 restoration of our now divided and 
     suffering country, to its former happy condition of unity and 
     peace.

                          ____________________