I have never understood the animus from 'Southerners' who descry 'state power' in their critique of Lincoln. The US Civil War was not about 'state power' or to 'centralize government', 2 ideas that lead to ruin and bankruptcy. Eradicating the barbarism of slavery and creating a Continent sized state, with all the benefactions economically, politically and militarily that entails; was the reason the US civil war was a necessary war. Thankfully the industrial North prevailed and by so doing, ensured that civilization would survive 3 future World Wars.

In 1863 Lincoln established the Thanksgiving day holiday. It should be a day of giving thanks, not a rush to buy items you don't need. Lincoln was Christian, pious and his most often used book and the source of much of his writing and speech making was of course the Bible. He uttered this famous words in 1863 [link]:

“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 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.”

How many today are 'thankful' for what they DO have. How wonderful is the myriad miracles of life, even in spite of our own infirmities, loss of faith, illness and experience of suffering, loss, hopelessness and death. Life itself proves that there must be an immanent Creator. Nothing does not give rise to complexity, organs, a consciousness and moral ideals and aspirations. Lincoln:

“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.”

These words from 1863 echo more resoundingly today than they did back then. Modern society is intoxicated with itself. The world of 'me', various cults which defy reason and relevancy, Facebook, Reality-TV, infatuation with 'progress' and gadgets; spending and consumerism and the utter banality of pop culture. Who cares about gratitude or giving thanks?

Not many it appears. Lincoln sounds like a Psalmist when he concludes:

“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.”

I can't imagine an American political leader today, stating anything even closely resembling the psalmist-prayer of Lincoln as given above.