Proclamation of a National Fast-Day, 
                               
                                                                              August 12,1861

     By the President of the United States of America

                       A PROCLAMATION

  Whereas a joint committee of both Houses of Congress has waited
on the President of the United States, and requested him to "
recomand a day of public humiliation, prayer and fasting,
to be observed by the people of the United States with religious
solemnities, and the offering of States, His blessings on their
arms, and a speedy restoration of peace":

And whereas it is fit and becoming in all people, at all time to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God;
to bow in humble submission to His chastisements;
to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in
the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom; and to pray, with all fervency and contrition,
for the pardon of their past offenses, and for the blessing
upon their present and prospective action:

And wheres, when our own beloved Country, once,
by the blessing of God, united, prosperous and happy,
is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiary fit
for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation,
and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes
as a nation and as a individuals, to humble ourselves before
Him and to pray for His mercy, - to  pray that we may be spared
farther punishment,; though most justly deserved;
that our arms may be blessed and made effectual for the reestablishment of law, order and peace, throught the wide
extent of our own country; and that the inestimable boon of
civil and religious liberty, earned under His guidance and blessing,
by the labors and sufferings of our fathers,
may be restores in all its original excellence-

Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
do appoint the last thursday in September next, as a day of
humiliation, prayer and fasting for all the people of the nation.
And I do earnestly recommend to all the people, of the nation,
and especially to all ministers and teachers of religion of all denominations, and to all heads of families, to observe and
keep that day according to their several creeds and modes of
worship, in all humility and with all solemnity,
to the end that the united prayer of the nation may ascend to
the Throne of Grace, and bring down plentiful blessings upon
our own Country.

    
                In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand,           
            
                caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed,
                  
                 this 12th day of August A.D. 1861,
                  
                 and of the Independence of 
                 
                 the United States of America the 86th.

                                   By the President: Abraham Lincoln

                                                                         William H. Seward,

                                                           Secretary of State