Topic: America, History, Matches 40 quotes.

Destiny Foretold

I shall not take time to go back and prove to you the truth of Elder Talmage’s remarks of yesterday. This country in which we live had been declared by the prophets thousands of years ago to have been given by God our Father to the covenant people of Israel. The coming of Columbus was not a thing of chance. The prophets predicted his coming ages ago. He came here under the inspiration, the impulse, unknown perhaps to him, of the Spirit of the Lord, just as we are led to do many things without just knowing the reason why, for the accomplishment of a divine purpose. The establishment in this country of a government to which the oppressed of all nations should come for refuge, for freedom. He declared that no kings should ever rule here, centuries before Columbus sailed from the port of Spain. He told the history of this country, its past, its present, and declared its future destiny, just as definitely as he declared its past history.

What is that destiny? It is that this government of ours shall persist; it shall continue; it shall never be thrown down; no enemy that comes against it shall ever triumph—upon this one condition, that the people to whom the Lord has given these bounteous blessings; these miracles which have come to the earth during my lifetime, these people who have grown from an exceedingly small beginning to be the wealthiest, perhaps the most important in influence—I believe I am justified in saying it—that there is in the world—upon condition that they serve the Lord of the land, who is Jesus Christ.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1932

Topics: America, Destiny; America, History

By the Spirit of the Lord

The Lord in his scripture tells us that no one can come to this land unless he be brought or directed by the Spirit of the Lord, and so he has brought this people here. He brought the faith of the devoted Puritans of New England; he brought the patriotism of the Dutch at New York; he brought the gallantry of the cavaliers of Virginia; the light-hearted energy of the French of New Orleans. Just the kind of composite body of men to establish a government that could not be dominated by any particular race or tongue, but made composite, that all men might be welcomed to it, live under and enjoy its privileges.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1932

Topics: America, History

Army Threatens

And so the government has struggled on. From the very beginning the ship of state has been at times upon a stormy sea. With the dismissal of the army after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown the soldiers were discharged. There was no money with which to pay them. They were in open revolt. Generals in the army accused Washington of being the author of all their troubles. They would have made him king and disregarded the confederacy of states which formed the Union. They threatened to march against the Congress which was in session at Philadelphia, and it became necessary to remove it to Princeton. Now let me read something that I want you to hear. While these men were assembled together in secret conclave, Washington unexpectedly walked into the room where they were seated. Fiske says: “Washington suddenly came into the meeting and amidst profound silence broke forth in a most eloquent and profound speech. All were hushed by that majestic presence and those solemn tones. He pleaded for tolerance, for patience, for trust in the newly born government which would in the end pay them that which it owed. They listened, the soldiers listened, hesitated and yielded to the irresistible presence of the man who more than any other had made the establishment of the nation possible.” I revere this man. To me he has been a man of destiny, a prophet if we have ever had one. I read frequently his last address to the American people. It is a treasure house of wisdom, of prophecy, of political philosophy.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1932

Topics: America, History

There are other great Americans who enjoyed inspiration in framing the institutions of this country, and in saying this I am not denying the room for inspiration in the formation and guidance of other countries. We pray for their guidance and the guidance of the officials of not only our own nation here in America but the rulers of other nations. I have thought sometimes we have neglected some of those great characters who were instrumental in shaping the foundations of our country and those who have made comments upon them. I know that we are familiar with the work that Franklin, Jefferson and others did in connection with the framing of the Constitution of our country, but we are less familiar with the work that the great Chief Justice John Marshall did. The formation of the Constitution of the United States is really spoken of as the greatest single achievement of the eighteenth century. There was that about it that inspired Daniel Webster to love it, “to have a profound passion for it,” “to cherish it day and night,” “to live on its healthful saving influence,” and “to trust never to cease to heed it until he should go to the grave of his fathers,” “to earnestly desire not to outlive it.”

Source: Elder Charles H. Hart
General Conference, April 1931

Topics: America, History; US Constitution, Inspired

Judge Marshall of Wisconsin in the case of Borgnis vs. Falk County, in a decision written by him for the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, said:

“At no period has appreciation of the great work of the fathers been more important than now. We need to sit anew at their feet, revive knowledge that the result was wrought by a body of men, representatives of the great seat of learning of the English speaking races of two hemispheres, and otherwise men of broad experience, many of whom had been students of all federal governments of all prior ages in preparation for the special task—as the historian declared, ‘the goodliest fellowship of lawgivers whereof this world has record,’ a body dominated by specialists, inspired by ennobling love for their fellow-men and the thought that they wrought, not for their age alone, but for the ages to come, and so sought to avoid the infirmities of previous systems of government by the people, by carefully providing that no change in letter or spirit should occur except in a particular and most deliberate and conservative way.”

Source: Elder Charles H. Hart
General Conference, April 1931

Topics: America, Heritage; America, History; US Constitution

The coming of Columbus to America had been foretold centuries before he sailed from the port of Palos, in Spain. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, was his guide and protector in his great adventure, and led him to the shores of a new world.

It was not by chance that the Puritans left their native land and sailed away to the shores of New England, and that others followed later. They were the advance guard of the army of the Lord, predestined to establish the God-given system of government under which we live, and to make of America, which is the land of Joseph, the gathering place of Ephraim, an asylum for the oppressed of all nations, and prepare the way for the restoration of the Gospel of Christ and the reestablishment of his Church upon earth. It was under these circumstances and others of which the Lord was the author, that the stage was set for the raising of the curtain upon the opening scene of the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times.

Source: President Heber J. Grant
General Conference, April 1930

Topics: America, History; America, a Choice Land

After we gained our independence, and later had written the constitution of the United States, our government was organized with George Washington as president of the new Republic. With the advent of the government of the United States came many new movements in the history of mankind.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1930

Topics: America, History

A Government Designed For All Mankind

The coming of Columbus to this continent was not a thing of chance. It had been foreseen and foretold by the prophets of God. The coming of the Pilgrim fathers to New England, of the Dutch to New York, and the cavaliers of the Old World to Virginia, was not a thing of chance, it was just the chosen combination of men and women who were calculated to make up the composite government which was established at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. They were prayerful people, they were people who had faith in God, they prayed to him and their prayers were answered; and, as stated in the scripture which the President has read, it was under the Lord’s inspiration that these men were moved upon to give us this government under which we have so rapidly and wonderfully developed. It was not to be a government of Englishmen, nor of Dutchmen, nor of royalty represented in the cavaliers, nor of French people who were in Louisiana, and to the north of us, in Canada, but a government designed fo the benefit of all mankind, a government which was to make all people equal under the law.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1927

Topics: America, History

Recall the new star that announced the birth at Bethlehem? It was in its precise orbit long before it so shone. We are likewise placed in human orbits to illuminate. Divine correlation functions not only in the cosmos but on this planet, too. After all, the Book of Mormon plates were not buried in Belgium, only to have Joseph Smith born centuries later in distant Bombay.

The raising up of that constellation of “wise” Founding Fathers to produce America’s remarkable Constitution, whose rights and protection belong to “every man,” was not a random thing either (see D&C 101:77-78, 80). One historian called our Founding Fathers “the most remarkable generation of public men in the history of the United States or perhaps of any other nation” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Birth of the Nation [1968], 245). Another historian added, “It would be invaluable if we could know what produced this burst of talent from a base of only two and a half million inhabitants” (Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam [1984], 18).

Source: Elder Neal A. Maxwell
General Conference, October 2002

Topics: America, History

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