Thursday, November 27, 2008

American Thanksgivings

Ira Stoll in the Wall Street Journal looks back at the first Thanksgiving proclamation--not by Lincoln, but by Samuel Adams in 1777.

And David Gelernter in The Weekly Standard looks back at Lincoln's last Thanksgiving, April 11, 1865--two days after end of the Civil War and four days before the president was murdered.

Both articles explore the historical situation at those times.