I spent some time as an editor at Regnery Publishing, during which time we published “The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.” I always enjoy rereading this account from Benjamin Franklin, which captures the history and the spirit of the American holiday.
Instead of a Fast They Proclaimed a Thanksgiving Benjamin Franklin (1785)
There is a tradition that in the planting of New England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships, as is generally the case when a civiliz’d people attempt to establish themselves in a wilderness country. Being so piously dispos’d, they sought relief from heaven by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord in frequent set days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation and discourse on these subjects kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and like the children of Israel there were many dispos’d to return to the Egypt which persecution had induc’d them to abandon.
At length, when it was proposed in the Assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer of plain sense rose and remark’d that the inconveniences they suffer’d, and concerning which they had so often weary’d heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected, and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthen’d; that the earth began to reward their labour and furnish liberally for their subsistence; that their seas and rivers were full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy, and above all, they were in the full enjoyment of liberty, civil and religious.
He therefore thought that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable and lead more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they ow’d to the divine being, if instead of a fast they should proclaim a thanksgiving. His advice was taken, and from that day to this, they have in every year observ’d circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish employment for a Thanksgiving Day, which is therefore constantly ordered and religiously observed.
Taken from The Compleated Autobiography
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Comments
One nation, founded under the God of the Bible.
We need more farmers of plain sense and fewer politicians with no sense.
Glad to see more responses to this thread. ididnot want to be the first.
I am sourcing a copy together with Franklin’s version of the Bible. I have it that it was revolutionary for he cut out stuff he did not believe.
Seems it might be a Humanist tract. Strange that it has largely been overlooked. Or maybe not strange.