The Constitutional Foundations of Thanksgiving - NaPodPoMo 2025 #25

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Randy Black.
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Randy Black.
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Randy Black.
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Randy Black.
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Randy Black.
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Randy Black.
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Randy Black.
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Randy Black.
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He's a troublemaker.
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Welcome back to Randy Unscripted.
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I'm your host, Randy Black.
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And this is a continuation of our NAPOD POMO series.
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That's National Podcast Post Month.
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This is for November 25th, 2025.
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I'm sorry.
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It's a day late.
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But we had a tragic event in our family.
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that I'll go into detail on later on.
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But I wanted to still go ahead and get this recorded,
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even though it's a day late,
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and get it out for those of you who have been following along.
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But National Podcast Post Month,
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the goal is 30 episodes in 30 days,
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and we're almost at the end.
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The light is at the end of the tunnel.
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But we're going to continue our Thanksgiving series today
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where we're stepping into a space
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I don't think most people ever really associate with Thanksgiving.
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and that's with the U.S. Constitution. Now, that might sound a little bit odd at first. After all,
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Thanksgiving brings to mind, you know, feasts, pilgrims, parades, football, but our National
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Day of Gratitude actually sets at a really intersection of law, liberty, and faith in
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public life. And as a former social studies teacher, I've always found that connection that
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exists there to be quite fascinating. So today's episode is going to explore how Thanksgiving
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became legal, how it became national, and how its story reflects our ongoing
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American conversation about faith, civic unity, and the responsibilities that come along with
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those freedoms we have. So let's address the obvious question that we might start with here,
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that the Constitution never mentions Thanksgiving.
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So, is Thanksgiving constitutional?
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There's no, like, Article 3, Section 4 that says
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Congress shall carve the turkey or anything like that.
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But what the Constitution does create
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is a framework that makes national observances possible.
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A president who can issue proclamations,
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a legislature empowered to set national holidays,
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and a federal government that can call the nation to unified action.
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The Constitution gives us that mechanism to do those things.
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Thanksgiving gives us the meaning that we need for it.
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And that combination of form and of faithfulness becomes especially clear
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when you look at the earliest Thanksgiving proclamations that occurred.
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Just months after the Constitution went into effect in 1789, President George Washington issued the first National Thanksgiving Proclamation.
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What's remarkable is how openly he spoke about faith, something people today often assume that the founders tried to avoid.
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Washington wrote that the nation should unite to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God
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and to render unto him our sincere and humble thanks.
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That was the first president using his newly created constitutional office,
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encouraging a national posture of gratitude and grounding it in the idea that our freedoms
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are gifts from God, not achievements we earned alone.
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Washington's proclamation didn't violate separation of church and state.
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Instead, it reflected the founder's assumption that gratitude to God was compatible with
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and even supportive of a free republic.
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As Psalms 100 verse 4 says,
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Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise.
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Be thankful unto him and bless his name.
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The founders weren't quoting scripture in the document.
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but they absolutely were drawing from a biblical worldview in what they did.
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Washington wasn't an outlier. John Adams continued the tradition during his presidency,
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sometimes declaring days of thanksgiving, sometimes days of fasting. He understood
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something important. A constitutional republic depends not just on laws, but on virtue.
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Gratitude cultivates humility.
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Humility cultivates responsibility.
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And responsible citizens sustain a free nation.
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Adams believed that government could encourage virtue without legislating belief,
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something modern audiences often misunderstand.
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Early Thanksgivings weren't about establishing a religion.
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They were about nurturing a moral citizenry.
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Thomas Jefferson broke the pattern by not issuing Thanksgiving proclamations.
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Not because he disliked gratitude, but because he held a stricter interpretation of the First
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Amendment while he was the president. Here's what's important. Jefferson's refusal wasn't
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a rejection of faith. It was simply a constitutional stance. He believed the president shouldn't
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recommend religious observances, even if they were voluntary, because it could imply federal
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endorsement of religion. But he wasn't perfectly comfortable with states continuing the tradition,
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and many did. He felt that if the state felt that it was the right thing to do, that they could do it.
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This is a great moment to highlight how the Constitution supports multiple interpretations,
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and how Thanksgiving traditions survived because of intellectual diversity, not in spite of it.
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And again, Scripture gives us a universal principle Jefferson respected even if he didn't proclaim.
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In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
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1 Thessalonians 5, verse 18.
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While Washington set the tone, Abraham Lincoln is the one who gave Thanksgiving its modern place in our nation today.
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In the middle of the Civil War, arguably the moment when the Constitution itself was in crisis, Lincoln called the nation to a day of Thanksgiving.
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His proclamation isn't just poetic, it's constitutional theology.
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In 1863, his proclamation had these things in it.
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He acknowledged the blessings the nation still enjoyed despite the conflict.
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He invited citizens to humility.
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He asked Americans to remember widows, orphans, and those suffering in the war.
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And he framed gratitude as a unifying act, one that would transcend the political divides that existed.
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Thanksgiving became a civic ritual meant to stitch the nation back together.
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Lincoln's words echo what we see in Psalms 95, verse 2.
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Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving
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and make a joyful noise under him with psalms.
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Today, Thanksgiving stands as a rare national practice
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that comfortably blends the constitutional tradition,
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the civic identity, the cultural heritage,
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and the personal expressions of faith that people have.
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It remains voluntary, unifying, and of course, deeply American, not because the Constitution
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requires it, but because the Constitution allows it. Faith provides the meaning,
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law provides the structure, and gratitude provides the glue.
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As we think about Thanksgiving this year, maybe the most constitutional thing we can
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do is simply this. Pause, reflect, give thanks, and acknowledge the freedoms that we enjoy,
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freedoms protected by the document the founders gave us, and ultimately those gifts. As Psalms
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107.1 says, O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.
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That is something that Washington understood, that Lincoln understood, and something that we as Americans still desperately need to remember today.
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Thank you for listening to this episode of Randy Unscripted, another episode in our NAPODPOMO National Podcast Post Month Series.
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The goal is 30 episodes in 30 days.
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We have another episode scheduled tomorrow about Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day.
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And I hope you'll tune in and listen to that.
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Sorry, not tomorrow, in two days.
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We do have another Thanksgiving episode tomorrow
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and then a Thanksgiving episode on Thanksgiving.
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And I hope you'll tune in and hear those as well.
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Until then, I'm Randy, and this has been Randy Unscripted.