Topic: America, History, Matches 40 quotes.

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 man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf. And it is my earnest prayer that we may so conduct ourselves to merit a continuance of those blessings with which we have hitherto been favored.

Source: George Washington

Topics: America, History; Heavenly Interest in Human Events

Of course, we continue to need the dramatic leadership of the likes of Washington, Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, Lincoln, and so many others. But in addition we need to show that it really works all the way down to the grass roots level. We need a real demonstration of leadership in our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools, our communities, and our state.

Mediation is proper between two alternatives that are both right, but compromise is totally unjustified when it is between a right and a wrong course of action. Our founding fathers were inspired to deliver to this nation a conscience, a standard of values, with which we have been richly blessed in over two hundred years of our history.

Though times and seasons do change, foundation principles do not. This season of celebration and commemoration is an ideal time to focus on our glorious history and make firm resolve that we will not be just spectators but also participants in ensuring that the foundation principles are being preserved, safeguarded, and practiced in our own lives, with leadership, enthu siasm, and spirit.

Our faith, our conscience, our integrity, our industry, our hope—these can never be allowed to erode to mediocrity. Literally, the hope of those nations with the newly found freedoms depends on our continued example that this system works even better now than it has over our two hundred years of history.

Source: Elder L. Tom Perry
Address given 23 June 1991 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: America, Destiny; America, History; Compromise

A new nation had come into being at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It had been ordained of God to accomplish his divine purposes. The past and the future met within it, for the formation of the government of the United States was an event ordered of God for the bringing in of his Kingdom upon the earth. A republic is the highest form of political institution, De Tocqueville wrote, and this we know to be true. Our government was made up of different nationalities brought under one government and one flag. Such a republic had been unknown before in history.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1958

Topics: America, History

To understand the true value of the ideals of the American people when they think of their government of the United States, one must recall the character of the people who settled these shores in the seventeenth century. “They brought hither in their little ships, not money, not merchandise, no array of armed force, but they came freighted with religion, learning, law, and the Spirit of God. They stepped forth upon the shore, and a wild and frowning wilderness received them.” Strong in their faith in God, they began their combat with danger and hardship. Disease smote them, but they fainted not. At times they had nothing to eat but the roots of the plants they gathered. They first built houses for God and then for themselves. They established schools and developed a strong morality which was always their principal characteristic. They educated their children to a high faith in God. Villages began to smile; churches arose; industries multiplied; colleges were established; and every town had a democratic governent for all to take part. The states that were formed grew into a nation with noble, fundamental ideas of government. And so came our own United States, the most democratic government in the history of the world. What a glorious history our early country had, for religious people went not only to New England, but we have also the Quakers and the Methodists and other religious groups settling along the Atlantic Coast.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1955

Topics: America, History

Washington’s Greatest Trial

Perhaps the most gloomy, discouraging period of the American Revolution was when General Washington’s army was in Winter Quarters at Valley Forge. He had fewer than 10,000 men. Soldiers were thinly clad, some half naked, others with no clothing but tattered blankets wrapped around them. “So many were sick as the result of privation,” writes one commentator, “so many were without coats, blankets, hats, or shoes that one wonders how the army held together at all.” Critical and desperate as were these conditions, a greater trial and sorrow, I surmise, came to Washington when some of his friends such as John Adams and Richard Henry Lee turned against him; when General Gates insulted him by sending reports direct to Congress instead of to Washington, his superior officer. As carrion hawks hover around dying creatures, so in Washington’s dire calamity came men to seek to crush him—men who formed what has been called the “Conway Cabal,” a contemptible attempt to dishonor Washington and to supplant him by a self-asserting, arrogant schemer. This internal discord, and such disloyalty from one-time friends were more crushing than were the attacks of the opposing army.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1939

Topics: America, History; War, Revolutionary War

Our Government started out blessed with the rich inheritance of the ages. Its future lay before it, and that justice should rule the hearts of all its people, the Constitution of the United States was written. The influence of our Government has been felt time and time again among the nations of Europe, for they have looked to America for the solution of their problems.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: America, History

The peoples of the world have entered our gates, and have found here a new life and happiness. Never had they been so well cared for; never had they the chance to live and to look up to their God in hallowed feeling as they were given in this land. No nation of history has given homes to its people as has this our Country. Never has the wealth of land been so equitably distributed; never in all time, have so many people owned their own homes. With individual opportunity, there has gone quite naturally inequality. Inequality is a law of all social life, and to try to do away with inequality among men is to substitute tyranny for liberty.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: America, History

The Declaration of Independence expresses the power of the Creator in three different places, and in words that speak of the divine in man. It says:

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This document and the Constitution of our country in their very spirit recognize the divine truth that government should be the expression of all that is noblest and true in the life of man. In the settlements of the frontiers of America, groups of religious men carried the spirit of religion into the unconquered lands, and the very fabric of our government was made up of many beliefs in the ways of providence. America for this reason has a rich background of the ideals of human liberty. All through our history the people have held to the belief in the divine guidance of the Master. Yet when we weigh the influence of social conditions today, we may well fear that we are slowly discarding our faith in the directive hand of an all-wise providence. Can there be any nobler truth than that the Lord does rule in the affairs of men? Is his power not seen in the onward march of civilization? Yet are we coming to the destructive belief that man and not God must ultimately rule in the affairs of man. Is the wisdom of mn the only power that will solve our problems? At times, such a thought was prevalent in the days of ancient Israel, but the Lord through his prophets guided Israel...

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1936

Topics: America, History

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