Topic: Government, Matches 21 quotes.

Life is a continuous series of conflicts and compromises; and, generally speaking, the cooperative actions growing out of such conflicts and compromises are sounder than if each one of us were able to carry out his own ideas, in his own way and without regard for anyone else.

But from the viewpoint of the individual, it sometimes appears that the efforts of others are unnecessary obstacles to his own direct action in achieving his own personal desires. Thus, it occurs to him that maybe there should be some centralized control or overriding authority to govern all human energies as a unit. This concept has a strong appeal because lurking beneath it is the alluring assumption that the right kind of authority would direct the affairs of all mankind in harmony with the individuals own personal views—thus relieving him of the trouble and responsibility of making his own ideas work.

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, p. 17-18

Topics: Government

Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

Topics: Government

The need for Government is the need for force; where force is unnecessary, there is no need for Government.

Source: Rose Wilder Lane

Topics: Force; Government

Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals—that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government—that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen’s protection against the government.

Source: Ayn Rand

Topics: Government; Power

The Role of Government

[The individual] is not just a cog in the wheel of the state. To be such I think is the greatest danger in the world today, but there are those who favor this. They think the state is our protector. It isn’t. The state, as a servant, is here to protect you in your work, on your farm and in your business, and to see that justice is administered; you have a right to that protection.

But the state has not anything that you do not give it.

The government has no financial means but that which you give it, and we give it to the government so that it will protect each individual in his right.

While emphasizing the worth of the individual, I wish to say that the individual in turn owes a duty to society. The world today is demanding that the employer consider his employee not merely as a part of a machine to make money, but as a living, sensitive being entitled to justice and right. It is equally obligatory upon the employee to recognize the employer as one who has equal privileges. It is the duty of the citizen to take this same attitude toward the leaders of his government, and the duty of the churchman to recognize the rights of those appointed to preside. [Secrets of a Happy Life, comp. Llewelyn R. McKay (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1967), p. 61]

Source: David O. McKay

Topics: Government; Rights; Society

There is no other platform that any government can stand upon and endure, but the platform of truth and virtue.

Source: Brigham Young
Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1941), p. 355

Topics: Government; Morality

4. Popular sovereignty. Perhaps the most important of the great fundamentals of the inspired Constitution is the principle of popular sovereignty: The people are the source of government power. Along with many religious people, Latter-day Saints affirm that God gave the power to the people, and the people consented to a constitution that delegated certain powers to the government. Sovereignty is not inherent in a state or nation just because it has the power that comes from force of arms. Sovereignty does not come from the divine right of a king, who grants his subjects such power as he pleases or is forced to concede, as in Magna Charta. The sovereign power is in the people. I believe this is one of the great meanings in the revelation which tells us that God established the Constitution of the United States.

That every man may act . . . according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.

Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.

And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land. (D&C 101:78-80.)

In other words, the most desirable condition for the effective exercise of God-given moral agency is a condition of maximum freedom and responsibility. In this condition men are accountable for their own sins and cannot blame their political conditions on their bondage to a king or a tyrant. This condition is achieved when the people are sovereign, as they are under the Constitution God established in the United States. From this it follows that the most important words in the United States Constitution are the words in the preamble: “We, the people of the United States . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution.”

President Ezra Taft Benson expressed the fundamental principle of popular sovereignty when he said, “We [the people] are superior to government and should remain master over it, not the other way around.“12 The Book of Mormon explains that principle in these words:

An unrighteous king doth pervert the ways of all righteousness . . . .

Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws . . . .

Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people. (Mosiah 29:23-26.)

Popular sovereignty necessarily implies popular responsibility. Instead of blaming their troubles on a king or other sovereign, all citizens must share the burdens and responsibilities of governing. As the Book of Mormon teaches, “The burden should come upon all the people, that every man might bear his part.” (Mosiah 29:34.)

President Clark’s third great fundamental was the equality of all men before the law. I believe that to be a corollary of popular sovereignty. When power comes from the people, there is no legitimacy in legal castes or classes or in failing to provide all citizens the equal protection of the laws.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention did not originate the idea of popular sovereignty, since they lived in a century when many philosophers had argued that political power originated in a social contract. But the United States Constitution provided the first implementation of this principle. After two centuries in which Americans may have taken popular sovereignty for granted, it is helpful to be reminded of the difficulties in that pioneering effort.

To begin with, a direct democracy was impractical for a country of four million people and about a half million square miles. As a result, the delegates had to design the structure of a constitutional, representative democracy, what they called “a Republican Form of Government.“13

The delegates also had to resolve whether a constitution adopted by popular sovereignty could be amended, and if so, how.

Finally, the delegates had to decide how minority rights could be protected when the government was, by definition, controlled by the majority of the sovereign people.

A government based on popular sovereignty must be responsive to the people, but it must also be stable or it cannot govern. A constitution must therefore give government the power to withstand the cries of a majority of the people in the short run, though it must obviously be subject to their direction in the long run.

Without some government stability against an outraged majority, government could not protect minority rights. As President Clark declared: “The Constitution was framed in order to protect minorities. That is the purpose of written constitutions. In order that the minorities might be protected in the matter of amendments under our Constitution, the Lord required that the amendments should be made only through the operation of very large majorities—two-thirds for action in the Senate, and three-fourths as among the states. This is the inspired, prescribed order.“14

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention achieved the required balance between popular sovereignty and stability through a power of amendment that was ultimately available but deliberately slow. Only in this way could the government have the certainty of stability, the protection of minority rights, and the potential of change, all at the same time.

12. Benson, The Constitution, a Heavenly Banner, p. 7.

13. U.S. Constitution, Art. IV, Sec. 4.

14. J. Reuben Clark: Selected Papers on Religion, Education, and Youth, ed. David H. Yarn, Jr., Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1984, p. 165.

Source: Elder Dallin H. Oaks
The Divinely Inspired Constitution
From an address given 5 July 1987, at the Freedom Festival.

Topics: America, History; Government

The Priesthood of the Son of God which we have in our midst is a perfect order and system of government, and this alone can deliver the human family from all the evils which now afflict its members, and insure them of happiness hereafter.

So Priesthood to me is more than the power of God delegated unto us, whereby we may act as his representatives, it is a perfect system and order of government given to us through which we may help the human race to solve the problems that now afflict it. One of the greatest differences between this government and the government of men is that we have no desire to take away land or natural resources from any nation or people, but we have a desire to help the human race, teach them the ways of life and righteousness as they have been revealed to us in this day and age.

Source: Elder Joseph L. Wirthlin
General Conference, October 1938

Topics: Government

American And European Ideals

“Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” That also is God’s doctrine the doctrine of common consent, exemplified at every Church, stake or ward conference, where the names of the presiding authorities are regularly placed before the people, to see whether they will sustain them as their leaders and teachers. This they manifest by giving or withholding their consent.

Compare this doctrine with the notion once prevalent in European as in Oriental countries, that the king or hereditary ruler of a nation was the owner of that nation, the proprietor not only of the land, but of the people living upon it. They all belonged to him and he might dispose of them as he saw fit, not being accountable to any human power for his actions. When a reigning princess married the monarch of another realm, all her dominions and all her subjects went with her as part of the bridal dowry.

Source: Elder Orson F. Whitney
General Conference, October 1926

Topics: Government

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