IV
106TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. RES. 597
Reaffirming the proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln on March
30, 1863, in which President Lincoln called for national humility, fasting,
and prayer, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SEPTEMBER 27, 2000
Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE submitted the following resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on Government Reform
RESOLUTION
Reaffirming the proclamation signed by President Abraham
Lincoln on March 30, 1863, in which President Lincoln
called for national humility, fasting, and prayer, and
for other purposes.
Whereas in a proclamation dated March 30, 1863, President
Abraham Lincoln stated as follows:
‘‘[W]hereas it is the duty of nations, as well as of
men, to owe their dependence upon the overruling power
of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in hum-
ble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repent-
ance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the
sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and
proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed
whose God is the Lord:
•HRES 597 IH
‘‘And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law,
nations like individuals, are subjected to punishments
and chastisements in this world, may we justly fear that
the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the
land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our
presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national
reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipi-
ents of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been
preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We
have grown in numbers, wealth, and power, as no other
nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We
have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in
peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us;
and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our
hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some su-
perior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with
unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to
feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too
proud to pray to the God that made us!
‘‘It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the
offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray
for clemency and forgiveness.’’; and
Whereas although the United States is now at peace, civil un-
rest divides the Nation and its people: Now, therefore, be
it
Resolved, That—
(1) the House of Representatives reaffirms the
proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln
on March 30, 1863, in which President Lincoln
called for national humility, fasting, and prayer;
•HRES 597 IH
(2) it is the sense of the House of Representa-
tives that all normal business of the Congress should
be set aside on a Day of Repentance and Reconcili-
ation for the United States, so that Members of the
Congress may join with all Americans in a solemn
assembly—
(A) to humble themselves with prayer and
fasting;
(B) to repent individual and corporate
sins; and
(C) to seek God’s healing, reconciliation,
and favor for the Nation and its future; and
(3) the House of Representatives encourages
people of faith throughout the Nation to join in sol-
emn assembly for such a day.
Æ