President Washington
declared a National Day of Prayer after the Whiskey Rebellion, as did
President John Adams when France threatened war; and President Madison
during the War of 1812.
President Tyler declared a Day of Prayer when President Harrison died; as did President Taylor during a cholera epidemic.
President Buchanan proclaimed a Day of Prayer to avert civil strife,
In 1863, Lincoln stated in his National Day of Prayer Proclamation:
"The awful calamity of
civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment
inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins...
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 superior 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.
When Lincoln was shot, President Andrew Johnson proclaimed a Day of Prayer.
President Wilson in 1918 proclaimed a Day of Prayer when the United States entered World War I:
"Whereas...in a time of
war humbly...to acknowledge our dependence on Almighty God and to
implore His aid...I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of
America, do hereby proclaim...a day of public humiliation, prayer and
fasting, and do exhort my fellow-citizens...to pray Almighty God that
He may forgive our sins."
On December 21, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated:
"I have set aside a Day
of Prayer, and in that Proclamation I have said: 'The year 1941 has
brought upon our Nation a war of aggression by powers dominated by
arrogant rulers whose selfish purpose is to destroy free
institutions....Therefore, I...do hereby appoint the first day of the
year 1942 as a Day of Prayer, of asking forgiveness for our shortcomings
of the past, of consecration to the tasks of the present, of asking
God's help in days to come.'"
In 1952, President Truman made the National Day of Prayer an annual event, stating:
"In times of national
crisis when we are striving to strengthen the foundations of peace...we
stand in special need of Divine support."
President Nixon had a National Day of Prayer when Apollo 13 was lost in space.
President Reagan made it the first Thursday in May, saying:
"Americans in every
generation have turned to their Maker in prayer...We have acknowledged
both our dependence on Almighty God and the help He offers us as
individuals and as a Nation...Now,
Therefore, I, Ronald
Reagan, President of the United States...do...proclaim MAY 5, 1988, as a
National Day of Prayer. I call upon the citizens of our great Nation
to gather together on that day in homes and places of worship to pray."
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