And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God?

Source: Thomas Jefferson
Notes on the State of Virginia

Topics: Rights

Thus by action of the people two history-making documents publicized to all the world the fact that in America was founded a nation, the purpose of which was to secure to every citizen the inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Hence our government exists for the individual rather than the individual for the government. To this concept of the purpose of government, totalitarianism is diametrically opposed, for it asserts that the individual exists for the State. Personal liberty is, therefore, non-existent in a totalitarian State.

But between principle and practice there is frequently a wide gulf. It was because of their religion that the Mormons suffered violent persecution, and were finally driven from the boundaries of civilization—from the settled areas of a land that guaranteed religious liberty. And this was in America, the only country in all the world in which, at the time, religious liberty was guaranteed by the fundamental law of the land. But the Mormons might have said as did Jesus of Nazareth “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The coming of the Mormons to the arid wilderness of the Rocky Mountains proved to be not only a great blessing for them but for the nation also.

Source: Elder Joseph F. Merrill
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: America, Heritage

With God denied there is none to whom man owes reverence. With reverence gone man is adrift. Each one’s notions have equal status with every other one’s notions, and no one knows what he ought to believe; respect for authority dies out because there is nothing authoritative left; veneration for parental authority breaks down and reverence for law ceases to command allegiance.

All these consequences are clearly revealed in the course of events, even in our own land. We of this generation received this great government of ours from the generations which had gone before sound in its principles, Its Constitution was everywhere held in reverence: Its laws were obeyed. No one doubted its superiority over every other form of government on earth. Every one had unshaken faith in its perpetuity. We pass it on with that faith terribly shaken. Its people are torn by dissension. They do not trust each other. They are not sure that after all our system of government is better than any other. They have grown cynical and doubt if good is to be found anywhere.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

The Responsibility of The Church

In the spread and perpetuation of the Christian principles that found expression in this cherished government of ours, the Church played the principal role. It has a great stake in freedom. It must be equally zealous to preserve and maintain it. It is its duty whenever that is threatened, either by direct assault or the insidious undermining of the principles on which it rests, to raise its voice in warning and in protest and to throw its whole influence into the scales to preserve that freedom under which men may live and grow toward the ideals taught by the Master.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Responsibility

In September, 1923, eighteen years ago, at a religious service in this Tabernacle, I mentioned certain trends I then saw. They were: a spirit of revolution that threatened the very foundations of government everywhere, indeed the destruction of the existing bodies politic of the world; the unrestricted immigration of aliens who were foreign and in tradition hostile to our systems of government; the enhancement of the power of the Federal Executive; the breaking down of the mutual independence of the three branches of government,—executive, judicial, and legislative; the disappearance of local self government and the assumption of control by the Federal Government of the very details of our lives; the curtailment of our constitutional guarantees under the Bill of Rights; the building of class in our nation and of class conflict and hatred; the spread of Bolshevism, we call it Communism now, working for the overthrow of our government, the doing away with religion, even the overturning of our family relationshps.

During the eighteen years passed since then, I have on all opportunities repeated these observations.

I will leave you to make up your own minds how far these trends have become realities.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Loss of Freedom

No Man Sees End

No thinking person doubts that our people, our nation, and the world are now passing through one of the great crises of the world’s history. We are in the midst of a world-wide revolution, which is wholly alien to our free institutions and is foreign in birth, concept, and directing head. No man, of his own power, sees the end. But the end the revolutionists seek is fairly clear; it is the overturning of the whole existing order, political, financial, economic, social, religious, the complete destruction of our Constitution and the government established under it, and then the setting up of some sort of despotism that shall destroy, in all these fields, the free agency which the Lord gave to man. The revolutionists plan that this is to be largely done during the war, under the plea of war necessity; it is to be continued after the war under the excuse—if we are not then too cowed to require an excuse—that this new political order is necessary that we may rehabilitate the world. They count that then, after a little time, the revolution will be secure. There seems no doubt that this is their conscious, deliberate, planned end. We have gone a long way already down this road.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Downfall

Our Duty To Sustain The Constitution

Knowing as we do that God set up this Constitution of ours and that He has declared it “should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles,” (D&C 101:77) it is the duty of every member of the Church to protect and defend the Constitution against any and all attack. In this country our lawful political allegiance runs not to any man, not to any party, not to any “ism,” but to the Constitution of the United States and to the free institutions set up under it. There can be no tampering with the “just and holy principles” of the Constitution. No true Latter-day Saint can or will do other than reverence the Constitution; each will do all in his power to save it from pollution or destruction.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: US Constitution, Defend

Europeans Plan To Have U. S. Pay For War

Notwithstanding the fact that our former associates in the World War owe us the money which we lent them amounting to over ten billions of dollars, and also owe us the great bulk of the interest which we, the people of the United States have been paying on that loan, and notwithstanding they took tremendous loot from Germany at the end of the War of which we did not, I am proud to say, take a cent, war loot, counting the German colonial possessions, many, many times greater than the money they owe us, nevertheless there is strongest reason for believing that some of the most skilled, astute, and shrewd diplomats, politicians, and statesmen of all Europe are now planning to have the people of the United States finance the next European war either before the war begins or during its progress.

Furthermore, certain of these same diplomats, politicians, and statesmen are planning to entice the United States into an offensive and defensive military alliance in order that we shall participate in that next world war by sending our young men to the battlefields of Europe. The argument they now plan to use to bring this about is that in this way only can the peace of the world be preserved. While this is a most profound fallacy, it will unfortunately find a sympathetic ear among many of the people of this country who do not fully understand international relations. It will require the wisest statesmanship on our part to prevent the United States from becoming again the victim of a world military catastrophe.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: Politics, International

Compulsion does not belong to the theory of government in the Kingdom of God. There are many man-made governments where they seek to control the actions of others, even in their religion and everything else. All this is contrary to the mind and will of God. He desires that every man shall be free “to choose his life, and what he’ll be, for this eternal truth is given, that God will force no man to heaven.”

Source: Elder Rulon S. Wells
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: Free Agency

•  ⟨⟨ 
•  ⟨ 
•   |  
•  ⟩ 
•  ⟩⟩