>From The Cork Examiner, 20 October 1863 - AMERICAN AFFAIRS. -------- (From the [London] Times.) With singular bad taste, and a presumption which augurs no good for the destinies of those over whom he presides, Mr. Lincoln has directed that the 26th of next November shall be observed as a day of Solemn Thanksgiving by all Americans at home or abroad. It is, no doubt, right that a Christian nation in the enjoyment of great blessings should remember from time to time the source from which these blessings come, and commemorate its gratitude in the form of thanksgiving, but in the case of the United States the first thought that occurs to us is to ask for what it is to give thanks. To thank Providence for blessings not received is as near an approach to blasphemy as to repine against chastisements duly merited. Many ways may be found of keeping up the falling spirits of a baffled party, and maintaining a declining reputation in the eyes of foreign nations, but none, we apprehend, is so objectionable as employing a religious service for the purpose. Thanksgiving for what? For civil war, the very greatest of calamities ; for the destruction by rude hands of a Constitution which had been regarded as a masterpiece of human wisdom ; for the loss of liberty ; for the death or mutilation of hundreds of thousands of human beings ; for increase of a spirit of exasperation and hatred ; for the devestation of large territories ; for the substitution of paper credit for regular and lucrative industry, and for the tenfold miseries which the war has hitherto inflicted on the black race as well as the white,--those are the things for which President Lincoln would have to thank Providence if the Day of Thanksgiving had been fixed on the 3rd of October. For what blessings will he have to return thanks on the 26th of November? How can he--how can any man forecast what in six weeks hence will be the position of the American Republic, whether it will be one demanding thanksgiving, or more suitably commemorated by fasting and humiliation? Is the course of events flowing entirely in one direction--are the indications of prosperity so steady and assured, that Mr. Lincoln is justified in pronouncing with certainty that his affairs on the 26th of November will call for thanksgiving and not for humiliation? We look from one item to another in our voluminous American intelligence without being able to find a single point which should inspire this overweening confidence. The North has undertaken to conquer the South. For two years and a half it has been engaged in this effort, and unless it is advancing towards that end it is really receding from it. How, then, do matters stand by the last accounts, and how are they likely to stand at the end of November? [Here follows a lengthy diatribe, recapitulating the current situation on various fronts and postulating that the North can never conquer the South so long as it is defended by "men of English race, fighting for their lives and possessions." - dja] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dennis Ahern | Ireland Newspaper Abstracts Acton, Massachusetts | http://www.IrelandOldNews.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -