National Review’s mission of preserving the American tradition of ordered liberty bids us to participate in one of our greatest traditions, marking a day for giving thanks to God for the blessings he hath given us as individuals, families, and citizens of this great nation. Our Pilgrim forebears brought their ingenuity, their industry, and their faith to a continent rich with natural resources and stout defenses. Their labors helped to bequeath to this nation a dual heritage of prosperity and piety. It’s fitting that we remember them on this day.
Many of our presidents have made eloquent tribute to this national holiday as it developed, going all the way back to George Washington.
For his part, John Adams called for a national day of “fasting, humiliation and prayer.” He hoped that this day of prayer would “be accompanied by fervent thanksgiving to the Bestower of Every Good Gift, not only for His having hitherto protected and preserved the people of these United States in the independent enjoyment of their religious and civil freedom, but also for having prospered them in a wonderful progress of population, and for conferring on them many and great favors conducive to the happiness and prosperity of a nation.” Abraham Lincoln, too, like Adams before him, commended the nation to thank God, even during the terrible Civil War, for our bountiful harvests and for our growth as a nation.
And John F. Kennedy gave eloquent expression of our modern idea of Thanksgiving, at a time — much like our own today — in which the nation was shadowed by a mood of foreboding:
This year, as the harvest draws near its close and the year approaches its end, awesome perils again remain to be faced. Yet we have, as in the past, ample reason to be thankful for the abundance of our blessings. We are grateful for the blessings of faith and health and strength and for the imperishable spiritual gifts of love and hope. We give thanks, too, for our freedom as a nation; for the strength of our arms and the faith of our friends; for the beliefs and confidence we share; for our determination to stand firmly for what we believe to be right and to resist mightily what we believe to be base; and for the heritage of liberty bequeathed by our ancestors which we are privileged to preserve for our children and our children’s children.
Awesome perils remain to be faced, indeed. Americans in 2023 are deeply and distressingly pessimistic. A Pew Survey earlier this year asked Americans to look ahead to 2050. Seventy-one percent of respondents said the U.S. will be less important in the world, and 77 percent predicted we would be more politically divided. Six in ten claimed that life was better for people like them 50 years ago. While making all proper room for nostalgia, it is a perversion of the “conservative” temperament when a significant majority fantasizes about living in the past.
We must face the problems we have today. They include an epidemic of drug deaths killing over 100,000 Americans a year and shortening our life expectancy, a broken education system that is forming America’s youth to despise their inheritance, steeply declining rates of marriage and religious faith, and a culture that still takes the lives of hundreds of thousands of unborn children each year — a different kind of death of despair. We have a failure to pass on responsibility from one generation to the next. This is reflected in the lack of wealth accumulating in younger generations, who should be risking their resources for ventures of their own — the great enterprises of tomorrow. It’s also reflected in the prospect of an election between two old men that strong majorities of the country would rather not be president again. Declining fertility rates foreshadow a society quite unlike those celebrated by Adams and Lincoln — a society aging and shrinking. And then, when we look beyond our shores, we see an international scene profoundly unsettled with wars and the rumors of wars.
These problems require statesmen of courage and character, and a strong civil society to meet them. They also require a people who are conscious of the blessings they have been given. And so, we commend our readers and ourselves to contemplate the awesome material progress of our times. We live longer than our grandparents. We make new lifesaving and -enhancing discoveries every year. We see tremendous advances in the space race, made by American companies. Like John F. Kennedy, we are thankful for our arms which give us so much security. And we commend our readers to be thankful for one another. We see Americans, with vigor, rising up to reform or rebuild institutions that have failed them. How fitting then to have a day marked out for us, as a nation, to thank God for the blessings we need, and the ones we never would have thought to ask for ourselves, the gifts He saw fit to give us in his Providence. Happy Thanksgiving!