Congressman Marsha Blackburn
7th District of Tennessee
Washington, D.C. – Fellow Americans –
We are sending our weekly Blackburn report to you a little early this week. I am certain that you and your family are much like mine and will enjoy the time to gather, eat some of your favorite foods, laugh, reminisce, and recount adventures together and probably enjoy a little football.
One of my favorite Thanksgiving activities is to have my grandsons join me in the kitchen to create some of our favorite foods and they always want to make an interesting dessert. This year, they want it to have a Vols theme, so it sounds as if orange frosting might be in my future.
We are so incredibly grateful to live in freedom and for the men and women of the military who dedicate each day to defending that freedom.
We are grateful for our family and friends who love us well through the good days and the tough days.
We are grateful for our first responders who put on their uniforms and walk into unknown danger each day.
We are so grateful for the opportunity to serve you and for the dedicated men and women who join us in serving the 7th District of Tennessee. Thank you for this opportunity.
As we reflect on our Nation’s founding and the reason for this holiday, I would like to include these words from George Washington when he officially declared Thanksgiving a national holiday.
Thanksgiving Proclamation
Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3rd, 1789
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other trangressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
Go. Washington
-Marsha
