You brethren also know that from the Rio Grande down to the Horn there is no constitutional government except those that are founded primarily upon our own Constitution. In Mexico the revolutionary party which more than a century and a quarter ago rebelled against the king of Spain and established a republic, copied almost verbatim, and practically overnight, our Constitution, and made it their own. Neither Mexico nor the others to the South interpret their Constitutions as we interpret ours. They have different standards and different canons of interpretation, for their fundamental system is the civil law, while ours is the common law. But the great essentials of that document, the Constitution of the United States, which God Himself inspired, is the law of Zion, the Americas.

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

Topics: America, Example; Law; US Constitution

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

Source: Thomas Paine

Topics: Responsibility

Why do we hold these conference meetings and all other meetings in the Church? They are held for the good of the individual—for your son and my son, your daughter and mine. The Lord has said,

”. . . if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!

“And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!” (D&C 18:15-16.)

The whole purpose of the organization of this great Church, so complete so perfect, is to bless the individual. How that stands out in striking contrast, in opposition, to the claim of the communist who says that the individual is but a spoke in the wheel of the state, that the state is all in all, the individual being but a contributing factor to the perpetuation and strength of the state.

That idea is diametrically opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus sought for a perfect society by perfecting the individual. He recognized the fallacy in the dream of those who hoped to make a perfect society out of imperfect individuals. In all his labors and associations, he sought the perfection of the individual.

The goal he always set before his followers was the emancipation of men and women from greed, from anger, from jealousy, from hatred, from fear; and in their place he hoped to bring about a complete and normal development of the individual’s divine powers through right thinking and unselfish, efficient service.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, April 1965

Topics: Government, Tyranny

The founding fathers of the United States of America were inspired in drafting a constitution that guarantees religious and other freedoms for all. Religious tolerance and changing attitudes helped prepare a people while the conditions created under the umbrella of the U.S. Constitution prepared a location where the restoration of the gospel could take place.

Source: Elder John B. Dickson
General Conference, April 2000

Topics: America, Heritage; Heavenly Interest in Human Events

The path we have to pursue is so quiet that we have nothing scarcely to propose to our Legislature (the Congress). A noiseless course not meddling with the affairs of others, unattractive of notice, is a mark that society is going on in happiness.

[About the number of laws added to the federal register in 1801.]

Source: Thomas Jefferson

Topics: Government, Good; Government, Purpose; Law

Mormonism holds a singular and unique position in the world, claiming as it does to be The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is a creed founded in righteousness, established, in this perfect law of liberty, and it challenges the world to produce anything like the organization which the Lord has revealed, and through which He makes manifest His righteousness and His purposes in the earth. Without this Priesthood, we are told, the power of godliness is not made manifest to men in the flesh.

We mistake greatly if we think that in the struggle for this liberty, in the fighting which began three hundred years ago, and continued during two hundred years—we mistake greatly if we think that that contention and struggle was for the purpose of establishing any particular creed, or branch of the Church. The contention of the Protestants, who protested against the misrule of the Catholic Church, was not that they should establish any particular kind of a church, it was a contention and fight against tyranny; it was a fight for liberty—liberty that they might establish a church, if they chose to do so, or do without one if they chose; but it was for liberty and against oppression. I say all honor to Protestantism. No man shall go before me in honoring that spirit of patriotism which was manifested all through the struggle in the Netherlands, in the low countries, in fighting that terrible oppressor the Duke of Alva, sent by the Spanish government and the Pope—not in the interests of liberty but to crush out the spirit of liberty. But the little thing that the Lord had planted, this desire for liberty, grew in the hearts of the children of men, and it became the great thing in England, as well as in Holland, in Queen Elizabeth’s time, with Sir Francis Drake scouring the seas and capturing the Spanish galleons, with their treasure loads of gold from Peru and Mexico. All that was not that any particular brand of church might be established; that is to say, that they wanted this church or the other church; the fight was—let me tell you again—that liberty should be established, so that men could worship as they pleased, how they pleased, or not worship at all, if they so pleased. The time had not yet come for the Church of Jesus Christ to be established; and all honor, I say, to the Protestant countries and Protestant peoples who caused liberty to become established.

So, a little later, in our own Country, the same fight, the same contention, the same struggle is on—not to establish one church or the other, but for liberty. In Washington’s time, the liberty, which this flag [pointing to the national emblem], now represents was fully accomplished, when there was enacted in our Constitution a full fruition of this fighting and struggling,—in these words: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, nor abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, nor the right of the people to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.” That being enacted into law and becoming the law of the country, then the liberty that all these people had been fighting for was granted to our country, and became an accomplished fact. Now, when that was accomplished, God Almighty, in His own way, sends forth what? A more perfect law of liberty and righteousness, more perfect than the Constitution of the country itself, in the bringing forth of His Church in these last days, in raising up the Prophet Joseph Smith as He did and instructing him how to prepare this wonderful organization, with the Priesthood of the Son of God as its governing power.

Source: Bishop Charles W. Nibley
General Conference, October 1909

Topics: America, Heritage; Freedom; Freedom, History; US Constitution, Amendments

Theocratic Government—I believe in a true republican theocracy, and also in a true democratic theocracy, as the term democratic is now used; for they are to me, in their present use, convertible terms. JD 6:346.

What do I understand by a theocratic government? One in which all laws are enacted and executed in righteousness, and whose officers possess that power which proceedeth from the Almighty. That is the kind of government I allude to when I speak of a theocratic government, or the Kingdom of God upon the earth. It is, in short, the eternal powers of the Gods. JD 6:346-347.

If the Kingdom of God, or a theocratic government, was established on the earth, many practices now prevalent would be abolished.

Source: Brigham Young
Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 354

Topics: Government, Forms of

The Constitution and laws of the United States resemble a theocracy more closely than any government now on the earth, or that ever has been so far as we know, except the government of the Children of Israel to the time when they elected a king.

Source: Brigham Young
Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 354

Topics: Government, Forms of

Whoever lives to see the Kingdom of God fully established upon the earth will see a government that will protect every person in his rights. If that government was now reigning upon this land of Joseph, you would see the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Quaker, the Shaker, the Hindo, the Mahometan, and every class of worshipers most strictly protected in all their municipal rights and in the privileges of worshiping who, what, and when they pleased, not infringing upon the rights of others. Does any candid person in his sound judgment desire any greater liberty?

Source: Brigham Young
JD 6:342-343.

Topics: Freedom, Religious; Government, Good; Rights

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