The history of the world with all its contention and strife is largely an account of man’s effort to free himself from bondage and usurpation.

Man’s free agency is an eternal principle of progress, and any form of government that curtails or inhibits its free exercise is wrong. Satan’s plan in the beginning was one of coercion, and it was rejected because he sought to destroy the agency of man which God had given him.

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

Topics: Free Agency

Be Faithful to Constitutional Government

[L]et us be true to our country and to our country’s ideals. Nearly three thousand years ago an ancient prophet said that this is a land choice above all other lands (see 1 Nephi 2:20), and it is, and the Constitution of the United States, as given to us by our fathers, is the real government under which individuals may exercise free agency and individual initiative.

Let us oppose any subversive influence that would deprive us of our individual freedom or make this government a dictator instead of a servant to the people.

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

Topics: Free Agency; US Constitution, Defend

Government of Laws

One of our great United States Senators had this to say regarding the laws of the land:

“It is a form of anarchy to say that a person need not comply with a particular statute with which he disagrees. Ours is a government of laws, not men, and our system cannot tolerate the philosophy that obedience to law rests on the personal likes or dislikes of any individual citizen whether he supports or opposes the statute in question.” (Senator Richard Russell of Georgia.)

Source: Elder Thorpe B. Isaacson
General Conference, October 1964

Topics: Government, Forms of; Law

An American’s Creed

We believe in the United States of America without reservations. This nation under God is my home, my country, my hope, and my concern. Here I work and rest and pray, and here I build and dream. Here my toil is rewarded by an unmatched abundance for my well-being. Here I have freedom to live, to think, to worship. That freedom is mine yet, guaranteed by the law in this nation under God. Here I am a part of the government, able to vote, to serve, and to carry my share of the common load.

God grant us wisdom and strength to safeguard our country’s welfare and to develop a devotion to measure up to this country’s greatness.

Source: Elder Thorpe B. Isaacson
General Conference, October 1964

Topics: Patriotism

Respect for another’s rights and property is fundamental in good government. It is a mark of refinement in any individual, it is a fundamental Christian virtue.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, April 1964

Topics: Christianity

The foundation of a noble character is integrity. By this virtue the strength of a nation, as of an individual, may be judged. No nation will become great whose trusted officers will pass legislation for personal gain, who will take advantage of public office for personal preferment, or to gratify vain ambition or who will, through forgery, chicanery, and fraud, rob the government, or be false in office to a public trust.

Honesty, sincerity of purpose, must be the dominant traits of character in leaders of a nation that would be truly great.

“I hope,” said George Washington, “that I may ever have virtue and firmness enough to maintain what I consider to be the most enviable of all titles—the character of an honest man.”

It was Washington’s character more than his brilliancy of intellect that made him the choice of all as their natural leader when the thirteen original colonies decided to sever their connection with the mother country. As one in eulogy to the father of our country truly said: “When he appeared among the eloquent orators, the ingenious thinkers the vehement patriots of the Revolution, his modesty and temperate profession could not conceal his superiority; he at once, by the very nature of his character, was felt to be their leader.”

Let us in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as citizens of this beloved land, use our influence to see that men and women of upright character, of unimpeachable honor, are elected to office; that our homes are kept unpolluted and unbroken by infidelity; that children therein will be trained to keep the commandments of the Lord, to be honest, true, chaste benevolent, and virtuous, and to do good to all men. (See Thirteenth Article of Faith.)

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, April 1964

Topics: Citizenship; Virtue

Thus, today, brethren, we are in danger of actually surrendering our personal and property rights. This development, if it does occur in full form, will be a sad tragedy for our people. We must recognize that property rights are essential to human liberty.

Former United States Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland, from our own State [Utah], carefully stated it as follows: “It is not the right of property which is protected, but the right to property. Property, per se has no rights; but the individual—the man—has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to his life, the right to his liberty, and the right to his property. The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a man his life, but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes life worth living. To give him liberty, but take from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to still leave him a slave.” (From George Sutherland’s speech before the New York State Bar Association, January 21, 1921.)

The bond of our secular covenant is the principle of constitutional government. That principle is, in itself, eternal and everlasting, despite the pretensions of temporary tyrannies. The principle of tyranny maintains that human beings are incurably selfish and therefore cannot govern themselves. This concept flies in the face of the wonderful declaration of the Prophet Joseph Smith that the people are to be taught correct principles, and then they are to govern themselves. Dictatorship, however, argues that the people should be governed by the individual or a clique who can seize power through subversion or outright bloodshed. Further, the people are declared to be without guarantees or rights, and the regime is claimed to exist beholden only to the plans and whims of the ruling tyrant.

Our founding fathers, despite some natural fears, clearly regarded the promulgation of the Constitution of the United States as their greatest triumph.

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, October 1962

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Rights

As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it, in reason, morality, and the natural fitness of things. And therefore every act of government, every exercise of sovereignty against or without the consent of the people is injustice, usurpation, and tyranny. It is a maxim that in every government there must exist somewhere a supreme, sovereign, absolute and uncontrollable power; and it never was, or can be delegated to one man or few; the great Creator having never given to men a right to vest others with authority over them unlimited either in duration or degree.

When kings, ministers, governors, or legislators, therefore, instead of exercising the powers intrusted with them according to the principles, forms, and proportions stated by the Constitution, and established by the original compact, prostitute those powers to the purposes of oppression; to subvert, instead of preserving the lives, liberties and properties of the people, they are no longer to be deemed magistrates vested with a sacred character, but become public enemies and ought to be resisted.

Source: John Adams
Works, I, p. 193.

Topics: Government, Good; Government, Loss of Freedom

It was never intended that our life on earth would be one of ease, since this life is but an interlude between two eternities.

Is there a need in American schools to teach our young men what America should really mean to them? And what about the young men of America who are not in our schools? Who will alert them? Because these secret youth organizations will be aimed directly at America’s young people, leaders of state and city governments should investigate every new youth organization seeking to become established within their respective jurisdictions. Our danger is greatest from within. If America is to be destroyed, the enemy knows full well it will have to be weakened from within.

Young men of America, stand by the traditions of your founding fathers. Make no compromise with the enemies of your freedom. Stand for your rights. Be true to your government. Be known and remembered for your patriotism, for your contribution to the freedom with which you would bless your posterity as you have been blessed by those who have paid the price and gone before.

Young men of America! Do you labor under the illusion that you can fight only behind a gun to defend your priceless heritage? Be not deceived! We are at war right now—not a shooting war but a contention as real and deadly as any shooting war ever fought in the history of man. Think of the uncounted millions already enslaved by the enemy without the horrors of a shooting war.

Each one of us should resolve to do everything he can for his country, which has done so much for him; assist in helping the rest of the world realize what freedom is and to keep aglow the fire which can truly light the world. You share in the noblest privilege of man, which is to make God’s work your own. “Men must choose to be governed by God or they condemn themselves to be ruled by tyrants,” was the way William Penn pronounced our death sentence as a nation or expressed our hope for survival.

Source: Bishop Thorpe B. Isaacson
General Conference, April 1961

Topics: Citizenship; Duty; Responsibility

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