Once upon a time, the annual celebration of Thanksgiving was also an occasion for sober reflection. I'd like to try that again, though I know I'll be going against the grain.

The grain used to run in another direction. In the fall of 1789, just as the nation was getting its balance, George Washington issued the first presidential proclamation. He assigned November 26 of that year "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," to render to God "our sincere and humble thanks." He mentioned God's "favorable interpositions" in "the late war," and in the new Constitution, "now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed."

Then he said Americans should also beseech "the great Lord and Ruler of Nations" that he might "pardon our national and other transgressions."

He assumed that we had sinned as a people, and that one duty of citizenship was a searching moral inventory.

Apparently Abraham Lincoln felt the same way. His 1863 proclamation, which set the annual precedent for Thanksgiving, also came at a precarious moment—"In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity," as he noted. And the reasons for thankfulness, again, were many: "the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies," that peace with other nations has been preserved, that the nation's laws had been respected and obeyed, that "harmony has prevailed" ("everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict"!), and that "the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom."

But then he said these ...