Topic: US Constitution, Threats to, Matches 5 quotes.

Centralized Control

Those who would change our form of government would centralize all its powers and functions into the hands of a few. Let us refer to this man of God, Thomas Jefferson, who was raised up by the Lord to help establish this great republic. What did Jefferson say with reference to centralized government?

Our country is too large to have all of its affairs directed by a single government, and I do verily believe that if the principle were to prevail of a common law being in force in the United States, it would become the most corrupt government upon the earth. What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all of the state powers into the hands of the general government. The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations.

Over the years that have passed, the states have given up many of their rights to the federal government. As a result, we are becoming a closely supervised nation in many respects. This man of God understood this and warned us and forewarned us to protect our rights as states and as individuals.

Jefferson foresaw the time when, should we be regulated in our businesses, in all our endeavors, there would come a day of famine. I shall read to you one of his statements: “Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”

We are living in that very day. We have seen the need for bread; we have seen the need for meat; we have seen the need for sugar; we have seen the need for many of the necessities of life. I am sure this wise man of God enjoyed the inspiration of the spirit of prophecy when he made the above declaration.

There are those who would change our form of government, would regiment us in all of our endeavors. It would be only a short time when men would be called to perform work whether they were qualified to do it or not. They would be forced into the harness of labor without any opportunity to express their own desires. Serfdom would soon dominate the lives of the people.

And again, this wise man of God saw that if there ever came a time when we were regimented that we would lose our independence, that we would lose all the blessings that have come to us through the Constitution of the United States. He said this, in speaking of regimentation, which is nothing more nor less than nazism, communism, or fascism, which are the forms of government that have shackled the peoples of Germany, Russia, Italy, and other nations. Should we adopt foreign “isms,” . . . it will be as in Europe, where every man must be pike or gudgeon, hammer or anvil. Our functionaries and theirs are wares from the same workshop, made of the same materials, and by the same hand. If the states look with apathy on this silent descent of their government into the gulf which is to swallow all, we have only to weep over the human character formed uncontrollable but by a rod of iron, and the blasphemers of man, as incapable of self-government.

Source: Joseph L. Wirthlin
General Conference, October 1946

Topics: US Constitution, Threats to

You and I have heard all our lives that the time may come when the Constitution may hang by a thread. I do not know whether it is a thread, or a small rope by which it now hangs, but I do know that whether it shall live or die is now in the balance.

I have said to you before, brethren, that to me the Constitution is a part of my religion. In its place it is just as much a part of my religion as any other part. It is a part of my religion because it is one of those institutions which God has set up for His own purposes, and, as one of the brethren said today, set up so that this Church might be established, because under no other government in the world could the Church have been established as it has been established under this Government.

I think I would be safe in saying that my fellowship with you in the Church depends upon whether or not I accept the revelations and the principles which God has revealed. If I am not willing to do that, then I am not entitled to fellowship. Anyone else who fails to accept the revelations and the principles which God has revealed stands in precisely the same situation.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1942

Topics: US Constitution, Threats to

I tell you that the day is coming that the Prophet Joseph Smith predicted, when the Constitution shall be in peril, when it shall be necessary for the men of all parties who stand for the Constitution and law and order, to stand together, or this thing that we hold so sacred and dear, that our fathers established, cannot be preserved. Now the Latter-day Saints, by reason of the fact that they have been taught that God established the Constitution of the United States, adhere to it as earnestly and devotedly as to any other of our principles of faith and belief. By reason of the training we have received we are on the side of the Constitution, on the side of law, on the side of order. In the training and discipline that has come to us in the keeping of the Word of Wisdom, in the payment of our tithes and offerings, God was but preparing us to meet the emergencies of this hour.

Source: Elder Melvin J. Ballard
General Conference, October 1924

Topics: US Constitution, Defend; US Constitution, Threats to

Brethren and sisters, let me say in closing that we have it of record, that the prophet Joseph Smith said the time would come when, through secret organizations taking the law into their own hands, not being governed by law or by due process of law, but becoming a law unto themselves, when, by those disintegrating activities, the Constitution of the United States would be so torn and rent asunder, and life and property and peace and security would he held of so little value, that the Constitution would, as it were, hang by a thread. But he never said, so far as I have heard, that that thread would be cut. I believe, with Elder Richards, that this Constitution will be preserved, but it will be preserved very largely in consequence of what the Lord has revealed and what this people, through listening to the Lord and being obedient, will help to bring about, to stabilize and give permanency and effect to the Constitution itself. That also is our mission. That also is what we are here for. I glory in it. I praise God with all my heart and soul that I am a member of it.

Source: Elder Charles W. Nibley
General Conference, October 1923

Topics: US Constitution, Threats to

In reading recently the Constitution of the United States, I thought of the eloquent words of James Russell Lowell when he was at the court of France. Guizot, the French statesman, said to him: “How long will the Government of the United States endure?” And the reply of James Russell Lowell was: “Just so long as the ideals of the founders of this government endure.” This incident has been told in the remarkable letters of the great statesman Guizot, and it is something for us to remember.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, October 1923

Topics: Principles; US Constitution, Threats to

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