Topic: US Constitution, Matches 32 quotes.

The Framers were deeply read in the facts of history; they were learned in the forms and practices and systems of the governments of the world, past and present; they were, in matters political, equally at home in Rome, in Athens, in Paris, and in London; they had a long, varied, and intense experience in the work of governing their various Colonies; they were among the leaders of a weak and poor people that had successfully fought a revolution against one of the great Powers of the earth; there were among them some of the ablest, most experienced and seasoned military leaders of the world.

As to all matters under consideration by the Convention, the history of the world was combed for applicable experiences and precedents.

The whole training and experiences of the colonists had been in the Common Law, with its freedoms and liberties even under their kings. They knew the functions of legislative, executive, and judicial arms of government.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1957

Topics: US Constitution

How long will it be before the words of the prophet Joseph will be fulfilled? He said if the Constitution of the United States were saved at all it must be done by this people.

Source: Brigham Young
Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 360

Topics: US Constitution

When the Constitution of the United States hangs, at it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the “Mormon” Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it.

Source: Brigham Young
Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 361

Topics: US Constitution

Sacredness of the Constitution

I am saying to you that, to me, the Constitution of the United States of America is just as much from my Heavenly Father as the Ten Commandments.

When that is my feeling I am not going to go very far away from the Constitution, and I am going to try to keep it where the Lord started it, and not let anti-Christs come into this country, [a country which] began because people wanted to serve God.

Source: George Albert Smith
Priesthood Meeting, April Conference, 1948

Topics: US Constitution

Government of the People

The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

Source: George Washington
Farewell Address

Topics: US Constitution

[O]ur Constitution provides for a republic. That is, we have a republican form of government based upon the citizenry electing representatives to carry out the functions of government. The Founding Fathers did not frame a constitution that would set up a democracy—a kind of government where political power lay directly in the hands of the people. Under a pure democracy, the citizens of the state would exercise popular vote to decide what laws should be made. The majority view would be registered and then carried out by the administrative hand of the central government. There would be no representation (legislative branch of government) between the citizenry and the administrative branch of government.

A democracy might appear to be more “democratic” than a republic, but the authors of the Constitution knew that a democracy would lead to a loss of individual freedom . . . followed by anarchy or tyranny. While the Constitution was being considered for ratification by the Massachusetts Convention, Moses Ames observed:

“It has been said that a pure democracy is the best government for a small people who assemble in person . . . . It may be of some use in this argument . . . to consider, that it would be very burdensome, subject to faction and violence; decisions would often be made by surprise, in the precipitancy of passion, by men who either understand nothing or care nothing about the subject; or by interested men, or those who vote for their own indemnity. It would be a government not by laws, but by men.”

Source: Against All Enemies
Robert Bearce
The Freeman, 1980

Topics: Democracy; Republic; US Constitution

The Constitution was not the work of cloistered, fanatical theorists, but of sober, seasoned, distinguished men of affairs, drawn from various walks of life. They included students of wide reading and great learning in all matters of government. They were among those who had successfully guided the Colonists through a long Revolutionary War, beset not only with grave problems of military necessity and strategy against one of the most powerful nations of the world, but also burdened with vital local problems of co-ordination and co-operation among and between a loosely knit confederation of thirteen different political entities, each jealous beyond measure of its own political independence and sovereignty, none with great financial strength, and all hesitant, at times to the point of unwillingness, to contribute the necessary funds for the common defense and for waging their war for independence.

Source: J. Reuben Clark
Stand Fast by Our Constitution, p135-136.

Topics: America, History; US Constitution; War, Revolutionary War

Let us first consider the origin of those freedoms we have come to know as human rights. Rights are either God-given as part of the divine plan or they are granted by government as part of the political plan. Reason, necessity, tradition, and religious convictions all lead me to accept the divine origin of these rights. If we accept the premise that human rights are granted by government, then we must be willing to accept the corollary that they can be denied by government.

I support the doctrine of separation of church and state as traditionally interpreted to prohibit the establishment of an official national religion. But this does not mean that we should divorce government from any formal recognition of God. To do so strikes a potentially fatal blow at the concept of the divine origin of our rights and unlocks the door for an easy entry of future tyranny. If Americans should ever come to believe that their rights and freedoms are instituted among men by politicians and bureaucrats, then they will no longer carry the proud inheritance of their forefathers, but will grovel before their masters seeking favors and dispensations, a throwback to the feudal system of the Dark Ages.

Since God created man with certain inalienable rights, and man, in turn, created government to help secure and safeguard those rights, it follows that man is superior to the creature which he created. Man is superior to government and should remain master over it, not the other way around. Even the nonbeliever can appreciate the logic of this relationship.

A government is nothing more or less than a relatively small group of citizens who have been hired, in a sense, by the rest of us to perform certain functions and discharge certain responsibilities which have been authorized. The government itself has no innate power or privilege to do anything. Its only source of authority and power is from the people who created it.

Keep in mind that the people who have created their government can give to that government only such powers as they themselves have. They cannot give that which they do not possess. . . .

The proper function of government is limited only to those spheres of activity within which the individual citizen has the right to act. By deriving its just powers from the governed, government becomes primarily a mechanism for defense against bodily harm, theft, and involuntary servitude. It cannot claim the power to redistribute the wealth or force reluctant citizens to perform acts of charity against their will. Government is created by man. No man can delegate a power that he does not possess. The creature cannot exceed the creator. . . .

The Constitution of the United States, an inspired document, is a solemn agreement between the citizens of this nation that every officer of government is under a sacred duty to obey.

The Constitution provides that the great bulk of the legitimate activities of government are to be carried out at the state or local level. This is the only way in which the principle of self-government can be made effective.

The smallest or lowest level that can possibly undertake the task is the one that should do so. The smaller the governmental unit and the closer it is to the people, the easier it is to guide it, to correct it, to keep it solvent, and to keep our freedom.

Remember that the people of the states of this republic created the federal government. The federal government did not create the states.

A category of government activity that not only requires the closest scrutiny but that also poses a grave danger to our continued freedom in the activity not within the proper sphere of government. No one has the authority to grant such powers as welfare programs, schemes for redistributing the wealth, and activities that coerce people into acting in accordance with a prescribed code of social planning. There is one simple test. Do I as an individual have a right to use force upon my neighbor to accomplish this goal? If I do, then I may delegate that power to my government to exercise it in my behalf. If I do not have that right, I cannot delegate it.

If we permit government to manufacture its own authority and to create self-proclaimed powers not delegated to it by the people, then the creature exceeds the creator and becomes master. Who is to say “this far, but no farther”? What clear principle will stay the hand of government from reaching farther and farther into our daily lives? Grover Cleveland said that “though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people.”

Once government steps over this clear line between the protective or negative role into the aggressive role of redistributing the wealth through taxation and providing so-called “benefits” for some of its citizens, it becomes a means for legalized plunder. It becomes a lever of unlimited power that is the sought-after prize of unscrupulous individuals and pressure groups, each seeking to control the machine to fatten his own pockets or to benefit his favorite charity, all with the other fellow’s money, of course. Each class or special interest group competes with the others to throw the lever of governmental power in its favor, or at least to immunize itself against the effects of a previous thrust.

Source: Ezra Taft Benson
General Conference, October 1968

Topics: Class Warfare; Government, Power; Government, Vertical Separation; US Constitution

I see divine inspiration in what President J. Reuben Clark called the “great fundamentals” of the Constitution. In his many talks on the Constitution, he always praised three fundamentals: (a) the separation of powers into three independent branches of government in a federal system; (b) the essential freedoms of speech, press, and religion embodied in the Bill of Rights; and (c) the equality of all men before the law. I concur in these three, but I add two more. On my list there are five great fundamentals.

1. Separation of powers. The idea of separation of powers was at least a century old. The English Parliament achieved an initial separation of legislative and executive authority when they wrested certain powers from the king in the revolution of 1688. The concept of separation of powers became well established in the American colonies. State constitutions adopted during the Revolution distinguished between the executive, legislative, and judicial functions. Thus, a document commenting on the proposed Massachusetts Constitution of 1778 speaks familiarly of the principle “that the legislative, judicial, and executive powers are to be lodged in different hands, that each branch is to be independent, and further, to be so balanced, and be able to exert such checks upon the others, as will preserve it from dependence on, or a union with them.“8

Thus we see that the inspiration on the idea of separation of powers came long before the U.S. Constitutional Convention. The inspiration in the convention was in its original and remarkably successful adaptation of the idea of separation of powers to the practical needs of a national government. The delegates found just the right combination to assure the integrity of each branch, appropriately checked and balanced with the others. As President Clark said: “It is this union of independence and dependence of these branches—legislative, executive and judicial—and of the governmental functions possessed by each of them, that constitutes the marvelous genius of this unrivaled document . . . . As I see it, it was here that the divine inspiration came. It was truly a miracle.“9

8. Quoted in Gerhard Casper, “Constitutionalism,” Occasional Papers from the Law School, The University of Chicago, no. 22 (1987).

9. Church News, 29 November 1952, p. 12, quoted in Hillam, “By the Hands of Wise Men,” p. 48.

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

Topics: Government, Vertical Separation; US Constitution

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