Why I'm thankful today

It ties back to Lincoln, of course

On this final Thursday of November, as we gather with our families and those who mean the most to us, we spend a few minutes—I hope—in contemplation of the things that we’re grateful for. And this year, I have to admit, it’s easy to lose sight of at least some of those things. The nation that I’ve lived in my whole life has tested my belief in what it’s truly all about. It feels as if this year’s gathering will be the calm before an unknowable and almost certainly unpleasant future that still lies ahead.

But in 1863, while this nation was in the midst of an existential struggle I can scarcely appreciate today, Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation setting aside the last Thursday in November as a national day to give thanks. And that’s why this holiday still exists and still matters, all these years later.

The internet can make up a new holiday for every day of the year, and at least some people will play along with it because who doesn’t appreciate something novel and interesting? I didn’t know that November 28 is #NationalFrenchToastDay, but if the internet says so, who am I to argue?

But today I’m grateful that, after centuries of allowing for the most terrible degradations to be visited upon one group of people who did nothing to deserve them—as if any group of people could ever “deserve” such things to begin with—the nation suffered through the trials and hardships that were necessary to eradicate these wrongs.

Such suffering was in full swing in 1863, after the war had shifted its focus away from the preservation of the Union and toward the end of slavery. This was far from a popular decision, and Lincoln’s re-election the following year seemed doubtful, at best. But Providence, or whatever term one wants to use to describe the inexorable march of events over what was once an unknowable future, finally led to the successful completion of the war, and for as long as there’s an American nation I’ll be grateful for this result.

The slaveholding states of the American South reacted to a Presidential election they did not approve of in 1860 by walking away, in many cases before Lincoln even had a chance to calm the storm and make his appeal to the “better angels of our nature.” That’s simply not an option for the state I live in, and the other 18 who also denied their Electoral College votes to the incoming president-elect.

Our only realistic option is to dig in and work for an America that rejects the message that so many of my countrymen—quite honestly—fell for earlier this month. While I’ve never considered myself as a dissident, if that’s the route I have to take over these coming years, I’ll take up that mantle and be grateful for the opportunity to do so. Abraham Lincoln and those who suffered through 1863 deserve nothing less.