Topic: America, History, Matches 40 quotes.

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

There has been ushered into the world a new force in history, and this was accomplished a hundred years ago by a barefoot boy, a child, who hardly had enough to eat, but who had linked his life with God’s. His name was Joseph Smith. He was the “Mormon” prophet, the prophet of this new dispensation, and was born at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was a new age of the world’s history. The government of the United States had been organized. The common man had come into his own. The government under which we live had acclaimed for the first time in all history that man is endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The constitution of the United States had written large: “We, the people”! It was the common man who was speaking, the man upon whose shoulders rested the great work of the new age. So this new prophet come at an opportune time, for a new age had come; a new age for the extending of the message of Christ Jesus our Lord was to be usherd in.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1927

Topics: America, History

The Declaration of Independence

One hundred and fifty years ago, on July 4, 1776, the representatives of the Thirteen United American colonies, which up to that time had acknowledged allegiance to Great Britain, met in Philadelphia for the purpose of declaring those colonies free and independent. They put forth the immortal document known and revered as the Declaration of Independence, the preface to the Constitution of the United States, which the Lord has declared in our day to have been established “by the hands of wise men” whom He “raised up unto this very purpose.”

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

Topics: America, History

An Act Of Heroism

These men were not Latter-day Saints—but they deserved to be. They did not bear the Priesthood, nor did they have the fulness of the gospel, with the gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost. They were not members of the Church of Christ—they had no opportunity to be, for it was not then upon the earth. Yet there was something within them that made them willing to imperil their lives, not for personal profit, not for self-aggrandizement, but for freedom and justice and the rights of man.

Their act was heroic, thrilling. Even to read about it almost brings the tears to one’s eyes. One of those men, after signing his name and laying down the pen, said: “Now we must hang together, or we shall all hang separately.” And this was no exaggeration. Had they failed, they would have been executed as traitors and rebels. It was their success that saved them, and God gave them that success.

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

Topics: America, Heritage; America, History

The unveiling of a hidden hemisphere, the discovery of the Land of Zion, the predestined theatre of wonderful events in the last days, events connected with the winding up of the Lord’s work upon this planet—the Land where the New Jerusalem is to rise, unto which Christ will come as King of kings, to usher in the reign of peace and right. This was God’s purpose, accomplished through Columbus.

The lovers of liberty who followed in his wake and were actuated by the same Spirit, as a further preparation for the great Latter-day Development, founded upon this North American continent a nation, the mightiest on earth, under whose protecting aegis, the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, the Church of God came forth, to be nurtured unto the complete fulfilment of its destiny.

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

Topics: America, History

Was not the great Columbus inspired of the Lord to cross the unknown seas and discover the western world? What a wonderful stride in the cause of human liberty! America, a choice land above all other lands, withheld during the many centuries of the past to become a place of refuge for the downtrodden peoples of the old world, to become the habitation of free men where no kings shall oppress or hold the reins of government, as the Nephite prophets have foretold, and how literally have their predictions been fulfilled!

Then came Washington, the father of his country, who fought the revolutionary battles which gave us our national independence; Hamilton, the constructive genius of the constitution of our country, and Jefferson, that great champion of the rights of men, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and inspired his fellow-countrymen with love for the principles of human liberty.

Source: Elder Rulon S. Wells
General Conference, October 1926

Topics: America, History

Let us always remember that the planting of America in the strain that determined our country’s character was a spiritual planting. The fathers who planted this nation were Christians. They came here as Christians. They came because they were Christians. They came on a specifically Christian venture. Get it fixed in your mind that the planting that determined the genius of America was a Church—not a town, not a colony, not a trading or exploring venture, not a gold rush, but a church, a little Pilgrim church crossed the sea for the sake of its church life. That is the origin of the United States.

Source: Destiny Magazine, 1965

Topics: America, History; Christianity

When we look down one hundred years and see the origin of our Constitution, when we contemplate all its trials and triumphs, when we realize how completely the principles upon which it is based have met every national need and every national peril, how devoutly should we say with Franklin, ‘God governs in the affairs of men,’ and how solemn should be the thought that to us is delivered this ark of the people’s covenant and to us sealed with the test of a century. It has been found sufficient in the past, and it will be found sufficient in all the years to come, if American people are true to their sacred trust. Another centennial day will come, and millions yet unborn will inquire concerning our stewardship and the safety of the Constitution. God grant they may find it unimpaired; and as we rejoice to-day in the patriotism and devotion of those who lived one hundred years ago, so may those who follow us rejoice in our fidelity and love for Constitutional liberty.

Source: President Grover Cleveland
in Philadelphia at the centennial exercises in honor
of the drafting of the Constitution in 1887

Topics: America, Future; America, History; Responsibility; US Constitution

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