which one of these presidents refused to declare thanksgiving a holiday?

Thomas Jefferson is the president who refused to declare Thanksgiving a national day of thanksgiving while in office.

Quick Scoop

• The only early U.S. president who pointedly declined to issue national Thanksgiving proclamations was Thomas Jefferson.

• Jefferson believed that having the federal government declare a religiously tinged day of “thanksgiving and prayer” violated his strict view of separation of church and state.

• Because of this, he broke with the pattern set by George Washington and John Adams, and no national Thanksgiving became firmly established until decades later, when Abraham Lincoln made it a recurring national holiday during the Civil War.

In forum and trivia discussions, when people ask “Which president refused to recognize/declare Thanksgiving?”, the expected answer is Thomas Jefferson.

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