• Connecticut. Governor (1754-1766: Fitch) Copy.

• Connecticut. Governor (1797-1809: Trumbull, Jr.). 1807 Connecticut Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer Proclamation.

IN accordance with what has been for centuries the pious custom of this Commonwealth, I appoint Friday, the fourteenth day of April next, as a day of Fasting and Prayer
and I recommend the people to use what thus becomes a legal holiday as, in the original sense of that word, a holy-day, to be especially consecrated to the worship and the service of God.
{illustration}
Given under my hand and the seal of the state, this fourteenth day of March, in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and ten, and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and thirty-fourth.
Frank B. Weeks.

• Massachusetts. General Court. Copy.

• Massachusetts. General Court. Copy.

• Massachusetts. Lieutenant Governor (1732-1757: Phips) By the Honourable Spencer Phips, Esq; lieutenant-governour ... of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England. A Proclamation for a publick fast: ... Thursday the twenty-first day of April next ... Given at the Council-chamber in Boston, the eighteenth day of March, 1757. Boston: Printed by John Draper, printer to the Honourable the lieutenant-governour and Council, 1757. 1 sheet.

• Massachusetts. Governor (1825-1834: Lincoln) Commonwealth of Massachusetts. By His Excellency Levi Lincoln ... a Proclamation, for a day of public fasting, humiliation, and prayer. ... Thursday, the ninth of August next ... Given at the Council chamber in Boston, this twenty-seventh day of July ... one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two ... 1 newspaper clipping ill. 36 x 9 cm. [Proclamation. 1832 Jul. 27]

• Massachusetts. Governor (1841-1843: Davis) Commonwealth of Massachusetts. By His Excellency John Davis ... a Proclamation for a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer. ... Thursday, the eighth day of April next ... Given at the Council chamber in Boston, this eighth day of March ... one thousand eight hundred and fourty-one ... 1 sheet. ill. 60 x 50 cm. [Proclamation. 1841 Mar. 8]

* To shield us from danger and disaster;
* To continue us in health, and prosper our varied industries;
* To open our hearts in practical sympathy for the needy, and others in distress;
* To enlarge and sanctify our endeavors for advancement in education and morality;
* To preserve to us the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and the precious heritage of good government;
* To nurture in us a more earnest regard for virtue, temperance, and the things which make for honorable peace;
* To keep us in that spirit of willing obedience to law and authority which is essential to the wise development and permanent well-being of every community;
* And help us to exemplify the Golden Rule of Christ in all our words and actions, so that the homes and neighborhoods in which we dwell may be brighter and happier because of our lives.

* To spare us during the current year from fire, pestilence, and famine;
* To bless us abundantly in our industries, and in our efforts for the promotion of order and sobriety;
* To inspire us with a broader and more thoughtful charity, and keep our hearts from the sins of envy and malice;
* To uphold us in all honorable and virtuous purposes, and prosper our every endeavor for the diminution of vice and crime;
* To give us a deeper reverence for law, a nobler regard for our liberties and obligations, and a higher appreciation of education and citizenship;
* And to enliven us with such a sense of responsibility to the divine commandments, that we may walk uprightly before God, and more and more manifest the spirit which was in Christ.

* To visit us not with his displeasure, nor reward us according to our deserts;
* To stay our feet from the paths of vice, and guide us in the ways of truth and uprightness;
* To rebuke fraud and dishonesty wherever they are found, and overthrow the devices of those who work corruption;
* To promote the cause of temperance and the rapid spread of that knowledge which quickens the conscience as well as the understanding;
* To nurture in us a deeper love of high ideals, a nobler appreciation of integrity and simplicity, and a stronger devotion to virtue and morality;
* To keep us in vivid remembrance of the value of our republican institutions, and make us equal to the task of preserving them and handing them down to the next generation;
* And to fill us with such a sense of our relationship to Christ that we may rejoice in doing good, and take pleasure in being of service to those who are less favored than ourselves.

* That He may afford His wise direction to our public and private affairs;
* That He may remember in mercy all who are in affliction and trouble;
* That he may preserve our land from pestilence and famine, from corruption and oppression, from injustice and sin;
* That he may give unto our State and Country--peace, prosperity, fruitful seasons, and plenteous returns for all the labors of man,

Given the trials that have beset our country and world - from the global economic downturn to natural disasters, the lingering danger of terrorism and wars that endanger our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and theaters of conflict around the globe, and the decline of our culture in the context of the demise of families - it seems imperative that the people of our nation should once again join together for a solemn day of prayer and fasting on behalf of our troubled nation.

In times of trouble, even those who have been granted power by the people must turn to God in humility for wisdom, mercy and direction. In the spirit of the Book of Joel, Chapter 2, Verses 15-16, I urge a solemn gathering of prayer and fasting. As those verses admonish: "15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly... 16 Gather the people, consecrate the assembly..." As Jesus prayed publicly for the benefit of others in John 11:41-42, so should we express our faith in this way.

THEREFORE, I invite my fellow Texans to join me on August 6 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, as we pray for unity and righteousness - for this great state, this great nation and all mankind. I urge Americans of faith to pray on that day for the healing of our country, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of enduring values as our guiding force.

THEREFORE, I, Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, do hereby proclaim August 6, 2011, to be

A Day of Prayer and Fasting for Our Nation

in Texas, and urge the appropriate recognition whereof.

In official recognition whereof, I hereby affix my signature this the 23rd day of May, 2011.

RICK PERRY
Governor of Texas

• Jefferson, Thomas. Thomas Jefferson, July 27, 1821, Autobiography Draft Fragment, January 6 through July 27.

  The next event which excited our sympathies for Massachusets was the Boston port bill, by which that port was to be shut up on the 1st of June, 1774. This arrived while we were in session in the spring of that year. The lead in the house on these subjects being no longer left to the old members, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Fr. L. Lee, 3. or 4. other members, whom I do not recollect, and myself, agreeing that we must boldly take an unequivocal stand in the line with Massachusetts, determined to meet and consult on the proper measures in the council chamber, for the benefit of the library in that room. We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen as to passing events; and thought that the appointment of a day of general fasting & prayer would be most likely to call up & alarm their attention.¹

  [Note 1 "Mr. Jefferson and Charles Lee may be said to have originated a fast to electrify the people from the pulpit. . . . Those gentlemen, knowing that Robert Carter Nicholas, the chairman of the committee of religion, was no less zealous than themselves against the attempt to starve thousands of American people into a subservience to the ministry, easily persuaded him to put forth the strength of his character, on an occasion which he thought to be pious, and move a fast, to be observed on the first day of June.--Edmund Randolph's (MS.) History of Virginia, p. 24.]

  No example of such a solemnity had existed since the days of our distresses in the war of 55. since which a new generation had grown up. With the help therefore of Rushworth, whom we rummaged over for the revolutionary precedents & forms of the Puritans of that day, preserved by him, we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of June, on which the Port bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation & prayer, to implore heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King & parliament to moderation & justice.¹ To give greater emphasis to our proposition, we agreed to wait the next morning on Mr. Nicholas,² whose grave & religious character was more in unison with the tone of our resolution and to solicit him to move it. We accordingly went to him in the morning. He moved it the same day; the 1st of June was proposed and it passed without opposition.³

  [Note 1 Printed in Force's Archives, 4th, 1, 350.]
  [Note 2 Robert Carter Nicholas.]
  [Note 3 "It (the fast) was spoke of by some as a Sehem calculated to inflame, and excite an enthusiastic zeal in the Minds of the People under a Cloak of Religion, than which nothing could be more calumnious and unjust . . . The Resolution was not Smuggled, but proposed in a very full House, not above one Dissentient appearing amongst near an hundred members."--R. C. Nicholas' Considerations on the Present State of Virginia Examined, p. 40.]

• United States. Continental Congress. Philadelphia, in Congress, June 12, 1775: A Proclamation for a continental public fast, to be observed by the inhabitants of all the English colonies on this continent. ... Thursday, the 20th day of July next. [Philadelphia?: s.n., 1775] 1 sheet. Also here.
  Congress...considering the present critical, alarming and calamitous state of these Colonies, do earnestly recommend, that Thursday, the 12th of July next, be observed by the inhabitants of all the English Colonies on this Continent, as a Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer, that we may with united hearts and voices, unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins and offer up our joint supplications to the All-wise, Omnipotent and merciful Disposer of all Events, humbly beseeching Him to forgive our iniquities, to remove our present calamities ...It is recommended to Christians of all denominations to assemble for public worship and to abstain from servile labor and recreations of said day.

• United States. Continental Congress. A Proclamation for a continental fast. In Congress, Saturday, March 16, 1776: ... The Congress ... do earnestly recommend that Friday the seventeenth day of May next be observed by the said colonies as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer. [Philadelphia?: s.n., 1776]. 1 sheet; 31 x 18 cm.

• United States. Continental Congress. In Congress, Saturday, March 16, 1776: In times of impending calamity and distress ... The Congress therefore ... do earnestly recommend, that Friday, the seventeenth day of May next, be observed by the said colonies as a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer. [Watertown, Mass.: Printed by Benjamin Edes, 1776] 1 sheet; 44 x 35 cm.

• United States. Continental Congress. In Congress, Saturday, March 16, 1776: In times of impending calamity and distress; when the liberties of America are imminently endangered ... the Congress ... do earnesty recommend, that Friday, the seventeenth day of May next, be observed by the said colonies as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer. Philadelphia: Printed by John Dunlap, [1776]. 1 sheet.

• United States. Continental Congress. In Congress, Saturday, March 16, 1776: In times of impending calamity and distress; when the liberties of America are imminently endangered ... The Congress therefore ... do earnestly recommend, that Friday, the seventeenth day of May next, be observed by the said colonies as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer. New-London [Conn.]: Printed by Timothy Green, printer to the governor and Co. of the colony of Connecticut, 1776. 1 sheet; 49 x 37 cm.

• 1798 National Fasting and Prayer Proclamation. Brief commentary by David Barton.

For these reasons I have thought proper to recommend, and I do hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the 25th day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the sacred duties of religion in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people;" that He would turn us from our transgressions and turn His displeasure from us; that He would withhold us from unreasonable discontent, from disunion, faction, sedition, and insurrection; that He would preserve our country from the desolating sword; that He would save our cities and towns from a repetition of those awful pestilential visitations under which they have lately suffered so severely, and that the health of our inhabitants generally may be precious in His sight; that He would favor us with fruitful seasons and so bless the labors of the husbandman as that there may be food in abundance for man and beast; that He would prosper our commerce, manufactures, and fisheries, and give success to the people in all their lawful industry and enterprise; that He would smile on our colleges, academies, schools, and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of sound science, morals, and religion; that He would bless all magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, give them the true spirit of their station, make them a terror to evil doers and a praise to them that do well; that He would preside over the councils of the nation at this critical period, enlighten them to a just discernment of the public interest, and save them from mistake, division, and discord; that He would make succeed our preparations for defense and bless our armaments by land and by sea; that He would put an end to the effusion of human blood and the accumulation of human misery among the contending nations of the earth by disposing them to justice, to equity, to benevolence, and to peace; and that he would extend the blessings of knowledge, of true liberty, and of pure and undefiled religion throughout the world.
And I do also recommend that with these acts of humiliation, penitence, and prayer fervent thanksgiving to the Author of All Good be united for the countless favors which He is still continuing to the people of the United States, and which render their condition as a nation eminently happy when compared with the lot of others.
Given etc.
JOHN ADAMS.

• United States. President (1797-1801: Adams, John). By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation. ... I have thought proper to recommend, and I do hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the 25th day of April next, be observed ... as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer ... Given under my hand and the seal of the United States of America, at the City of Philadelphia, this sixth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine and of the independence of the said states, the twenty third. John Adams [Philadelphia, 1799]. March 6, 1799. Philadelphia, 1799. 1 sheet; 34 x 20 cm.

• James Madison - 07/09/1812 Proclamation - Humiliation and Prayer - 1812. This is the text of James Madison's August, 1812 Humiliation and Prayer Fast Proclamation; as printed in the Independent Chronicle on July 20, 1812.

• United States. President (1809-1817. Madison). Proclamation, July 23rd, 1813. Madison's Proclamation published in the Providence Patriot, November 26, 1814, p. 46.

"Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That, it being a duty peculiarly incumbent in a time of war humbly and devoutly to acknowledge our dependence on Almighty God and to implore His aid and protection, the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, respectfully requested to recommend a day of public humiliation, prayer, and fasting, to be observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnity and the offering of fervent supplications to Almighty God for the safety and welfare of our cause, His blessings on our arms, and a speedy restoration of an honorable and lasting peace to the nations of the earth";

To explain my meaning, here, with reference to a Christian nation, I would say, that--When the rulers of a Christian country recommend Christianity by their practice and example: When they discover a reverence for it by faithfully enacting and executing laws for the suppression of vice and immorality: When, without infringing on the rights of conscience, they encourage true piety, by countenancing those who profess, practice and teach it: When, on suitable occasions, and in public acts, the Being and Providence of God, and our accountableness to him, are recognised, and the honour which is due to his Son is rendered: When the moral laws of God, relative to man, as well as to himself, are truly regarded, by those whose station gives influence and fashion to their conduct, and renders it in a sort the representation and expression of national sentiment on the subject of morals: And when, in addition to this, the great principles of piety and morality already recited, are so generally and effectually taught and inculcated on the people at large, as really to influence the public mind, and in some good degree to form the popular opinions and habits:--this I would say was a performance of duty,--this would secure to a christian nation the benefits of the divine promise. But when, among those who preside over the people, the very being, attributes, and providence of God are denied, or when there is a studied omission of every idea that refers to his government, or to our dependence on him: When, thro' a hatred of Christianity, it is disavowed, despised, laughed at, and in the most contemptuous manner trampled under foot; or when thro' pusillanimity or impious policy, a country conceals its attachment to the religion of Jesus; or when the profession of attachment is only a thin veil of hypocracy: When the leading men of a nation flagrantly and shamelessly violate every moral law; And when the people at large love to have it so, and are rapidly assimilating to the same corrupt standard; then they subject themselves to the divine denunciation, and are treading on the brink of destruction.

• Van Vlierden, Petrus, 1737-1821. A Sermon, delivered at Catskill on Thursday, July 30, 1812 being a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer by Petrus van Vlierden translated from the Dutch. 2nd ed. 24 pp.

"Thus I have stated to you, though very briefly, the principles on which I think the American cause ought to be pleaded, and on which it ought to be espoused and supported, by every lover of justice and of mankind. But though the general plea in justice were less clear than it is, there is a light in which the conduct of the opposers of it has always appeared to me unreasonable and ungenerous to the highest degree. That resistance to Great-Britain has been determined on, in the most resolute manner, through all the colonies, by a vast majority, is not only certain, but undeniable. In the beginning of the controversy, some writers, with an impudence hardly to be paralelled, called the fact in question, attempted to deceive the people in this country, and effectually deceived the people of England, by making them believe, that it was only a few factious and violent men that had engaged in the contest. It is not very long since a writer had the courage to assert, that, 'nine tenths of the people of Pennsylvania were against independence.' The falsehood of such misrepresentations is now manifest, and indeed was probably known from the beginning, by those who desired to have them believed. Taking-this for granted, then, for an inconsiderable minority, whether natives or strangers,to set themselves in opposition to the public councils, is contrary to reason and justice, and even to the very first principles, of the social life."