When David Barton appeared on Glenn Beck’s program to discuss the important of prayer and fasting, he displayed various prayer proclamations issued by the Founding Fathers before highlighting one issued by Abraham Lincoln that Barton claimed Lincoln released because he felt that America had “become so prosperous, so bountiful” that it had forgotten God and needed to be reminded to humble itself and be thankful for all God had given this nation, declaring that it showed that “Lincoln had great spiritual insight at a time when the nation really was doing well”:
The proclamation that Barton cited was issued by Lincoln on August 12, 1861 … just a few months after the start of the Civil War; not exactly “a time when the nation really was doing well”:
And whereas, when our own beloved Country, once, by the blessing of God, united, prosperous and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves before Him, and to pray for His mercy, — to pray that we may be spared further punishment, though most justly deserved; that our arms may be blessed and made effectual for the re-establishment of law, order and peace, throughout the wide extent of our country; and that the inestimable boon of civil and religious liberty, earned under His guidance and blessing, by the labors and sufferings of our fathers, may be restored in all its original excellence.
