A Defense of Compulsory Labor

Let us first consider a quotation from Bossuet [tutor to the Dauphin in the Court of Louis XIV]: 5

One of the things most strongly impressed (by whom?) upon the minds of the Egyptians was patriotism. . . . No one was permitted to be useless to the state. The law assigned to each one his work, which was handed down from father to son. No one was permitted to have two professions. Nor could a person change from one job to another. . . . But there was one task to which all were forced to conform: the study of the laws and of wisdom. Ignorance of religion and of the political regulations of the country was not excused under any circumstances. Moreover, each occupation was assigned (by whom?) to a certain district. . . . Among the good laws, one of the best was that everyone was trained (by whom?) to obey them. As a result of this, Egypt was filled with wonderful inventions, and nothing was neglected that could make life easy and quiet.

Thus, according to Bossuet, persons derive nothing from themselves. Patriotism, prosperity, inventions, husbandry, science—all of these are given to the people by the operation of the laws, the rulers. All that the people have to do is to bow to leadership.

Source: Frederic Bastiat
The Law

Topics: Individual, Improvement

Brigham Young on Education

We had to pay our own school teachers, raise our own bread and earn our own clothing, or go without, there was no other choice. We did it then, and we are able to do the same to-day. I want to enlist the sympathies of the ladies among the Latter-day Saints, to see what we can do for ourselves with regard to schooling our children. Do not say you cannot school them, for you can. There is not a family in this community but what we will take and school their children if they are not able to do it themselves; and we do not do it through begging in the East and telling what others have told there about this people, and about their own efforts to establish free schools here. I understand that the other night there was a school meeting in one of the wards of this city, and a part there—a poor miserable apostate—said, “We want a free school, and we want to have the name of establishing the first free school in Utah.” To call a person a poor miserable apostate may seem like a harsh word; but what shall we call a man who talks about free schools and who would have all the people taxed to support them, and yet would take his rifle and threaten to shoot the man who had the collection of the ordinary light taxes levied in this Territory—taxes which are lighter than any levied in any other portion of the country? We have no other schools but free schools here—our schools are all free. Our meetings are free, our teachings are free. We labor for ourselves and the kingdom of God.

Source: Brigham Young
Journal of Discourses
Vol.16, p.19 - p.20, April 7, 1873

Topics: Education

Good and Wise Men

Speaking of other country, I think the business men are largely to blame for these chaotic conditions. The Lord says: “Search out good and wise men”—not of any party; not of any church, but search out these good men and put them in charge of our civil affairs. But if you ask a business man to run for office, he becomes a Pharisee, a political Pharisee. He says: “I don’t like to enter into the slime of politics.” But who has made it a slime? The men who were unworthy to hold office. Business men say: “We can’t be elected.” Well, when, in the name of heaven, will you be any stronger? Why not enter the conflict? There ought to be common ground where good and wise men may stand, and their influence will be felt at headquarters in Washington.

Source: Elder Charles A. Callis
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Citizenship; Voting

The Glorious Standard

We are deaf today to the approach of tyranny because we have lived so long under the protection of the Constitution that we take for granted the blessings of liberty. But the Framers of the Constitution, having had bitter experience with tyranny, wrote it with the purpose to preserve the right of local self government-which had been the fundamental principle on which the war of the Revolution was fought. They were not dreamers, but practical men of wide experience, and they wrote into that document the fruition of human experience in self-government. Prospering under the privileges insured by the Constitution this country has advanced as no other in a like period in all history. We need more people today with strong convictions in support of the Constitution and with courage to stand back of their convictions. We need men with courage to refuse support to every effort aimed at undermining the Constitution. Any change in our social order which is really desirable can be effected under the Constitution or by orderly Constitutional amendment rather than by efforts to evade its provisions. We must continue to protect ourselves against the approach of tyranny in any guise.

Source: J. Reuben Clark
“A Talk on the Constitution of the United States.”
Stand Fast by Our Constitution

Topics: Citizenship; Statesmanship

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

George Washington on The Course of the Future

Toward the preservation of your Government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember especially that for the efficient management of your common interests in a country so extensive as ours a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable.

Source: George Washington
Farewell Address

Topics: America, Destiny

They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community, and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.

Source: George Washington
Farewell Address

Topics: Politics

Part of my Religion

In closing I must add a personal word. My faith teaches me that the Constitution is an inspired document drawn by the hands of men whom God raised up for that very purpose; that God has given His approval of the Government set up under the Constitution “for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles”; that the constitutional “principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before” the Lord. (D & C 101:77; 98:5.)

The Constitution is a part of my religion.

Source: Address of J. Reuben Clark, Jr., delivered May 29, 1957
before the 67th Annual Congress of the National
Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, at
Salt Lake City, Utah.

Topics: US Constitution, Inspired

In the static world of the pagans, the only way to gain a benefit was to take something away from someone else. Under that philosophy, human energy which might have been used to increase wealth was always wasted in fighting over existing wealth. This went on for thousands upon thousands of years; in the process, material wealth was destroyed, human energy was dissipated, and desolation prevailed.

Then, here in America, after 160 years of voluntary cooperation between free individuals, we have pointed the way to a world of peace and plenty. Although we’ve just barely reached the threshold, we’ve gone far enough to disprove the age-old superstition that for one person to make a profit, the other must suffer a loss. Under the American formula, the soundness of the Golden Rule becomes increasingly apparent; and for the first time in history, we have witnessed the paradox of higher wages, lower prices, more things for more people—and we’re only just getting started!

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, pp. 227-8

Topics: America, Heritage

•  ⟨⟨ 
•  ⟨ 
•   |  
•  ⟩ 
•  ⟩⟩