JOHN W. GEARY
(John White Geary)
Lincoln was under enormous stress, and many noticed how he was aging in the Presidency. The photographic records corroborate this.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth celebrated the first American Thanksgiving in 1621. George Washington had declared November 26, 1789 a day of thanksgiving. During the raging Civil War, President Lincoln had fixed the last Thursday of November to be a “Day of Thanksgiving”. Geary was following precedent and helping to make a tradition. However, there were those at the time who objected to the last sentence of the quotation as being overly sectarian and violating the separation of church and state doctrine. See
John White Geary was an American lawyer, politician, Freemason, and a Union general in the American Civil War. He was the final alcalde and first mayor of San Francisco, a governor of the Kansas Territory, and the 16th governor of Pennsylvania.
