Decries Conditions In America

I am sure we all love America. I am sure there are no more patriotic people on the face of the earth than the Latter-day Saints; in fact, our belief is that the men who established this country were blessed of God, that they were inspired of God, and as we depart from those things we are not doing that which is pleasing to our Heavenly Father. I think that without doubt we are getting just about as far away as we can at the present time—shall I say, politically. I do not care how you put it. We are starting on the broad path that leads to destruction, and had we stayed in the straight and narrow path we would not need to be arranging to be in a war. The Lord points out the way, and if we walk in it all will be well.

Many of the Latter-day Saints have surrendered their independence; they have surrendered their free thought, politically, and we have got to get back to where we are not surrendering the right. We must stay with the right and if we do so God will bless us.

Source: President Heber J. Grant
General Conference, October 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

Warnings of Threats to Freedom

Should it be of concern to us when the mouthpiece of the Lord keeps constantly and consistently raising his voice of warning about the loss of our freedom as he has over the years? There are two unrighteous ways to deal with his prophetic words of warning: you can fight them or you can ignore them. Either course will bring you disaster in the long run.

Hear his words: “No greater immediate responsibility rests upon members of the Church, upon all citizens of this Republic and of neighboring Republics than to protect the freedom vouchsafed by the Constitution of the United States.” (Cited in Jerreld L. Newquist, Prophets, Principles and National Survival [SLC: Publishers Press, 1964], p. 157.) As important as are all other principles of the gospel, it was the freedom issue which determined whether you received a body. To have been on the wrong side of the freedom issue during the war in heaven meant eternal damnation. How then can Latter-day Saints expect to be on the wrong side in this life and escape the eternal consequences? The war in heaven is raging on earth today. The issues are the same: “Shall men be compelled to do what others claim is for their best welfare” or will they heed the counsel of the prophet and preserve their freedom?

Satan argued that men given their freedom would not choose correctly therefore he would compel them to do right and save us all. Today Satan argues that men given their freedom do not choose wisely; therefore a so-called brilliant, benevolent few must establish the welfare government and force us into a greater socialistic society. We are assured of being led into the promised land as long as we let them put a golden ring in our nose. In the end we lose our freedom and the promised land also. No matter what you call it—communism, socialism, or the welfare state—our freedom is sacrificed. We believe the gospel is the greatest thing in the world; why then do we not force people to join the Church if they are not smart enough to see it on their own? Because this is Satan’s way not the Lord’s plan. The Lord uses persuasion and love.

Source: Elder Ezra Taft Benson
General Conference, April 1965

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

Let us not think even for a moment that liberty is the gift of any government or any nation. Oh, no! Life and liberty are our inalienable rights and were vouchsafed unto us in that primeval council when our great champion, even Jesus Christ, said: “Here am I, send me” for he came and organized this earth as a dwelling place for the children of God, for you and me:

To live and to be free,
To worship God alone
As conscience guideth me,
As my own heart is prone;
For these are rights God given,
He gave them all to me
They emanate from heaven,
E’en life and liberty.

This is the thought that comes into my mind when I contemplate the history of the world, that Providence is over all.

Source: Elder Rulon S. Wells
General Conference, October 1926

Topics: Free Agency; Liberty

“Not Yours to Give”: The Real Davy Crockett Story (Part I)

When Colonel Davy Crockett (1786-1836) was a member of the House of Representatives, he voted for a bill to relieve the victims of a fire in Georgetown. While Crockett was campaigning for the next election, a backwoods farmer came to him and chastised him for his vote, with these words:

“It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he.

If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose . . . .

There are about 240 members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The congressmen chose to keep their own money . . . The people about Washington no doubt applauded you for relieving them of the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else.

Everything beyond this is a usurpation.”

Source: The Life of Colonel David Crockett, ed. Edward S. Ellis
(Philadelphia: Potter & Coates, 1884). Reprinted in Lawrence W. Reed
and Dale M. Haywood, eds., When We Are Free (Midland, Michigan:
Northwood Institute Press, 1981), p. 185.

Topics: Government, Spending; Rights

Much of the problem with the Federal budget has arisen out of the mistaken concept of a “right” to basic goods and services, and I am disturbed by your promotion of this concept in the headline from your newsletter: “Health Care: An American Right.” This idea has all but destroyed an understanding among the public of the true concept of rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, where rights refer to areas where governments are proscribed from interfering with the individual, not to things which individuals can feel justified in having the government provide by stealing from others.

In this regard I would ask you to ponder the following words of Davy Crockett, spoken to the U.S. House of Representatives in regard to a bill to appropriate money for a “worthy cause” when he was a Congressman from Tennessee:

. . . we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of public money . . . .

. . . I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.

The bill failed. Of course today it would be impossible for Congressmen to fund any but the tiniest of the programs they debate out of their own pockets, and it is extremely rare for a Congressman to consider the question of whether it is in his delegated authority under the Constitution to make budgetary commitments to all of today’s massive programs.”

Source: Davy Crockett Story (Part II)
The Freeman, 1992, September, p. 364.

Topics: Government, Spending; Rights

In 1973 the First Presidency of the Church made public this statement:

“We urge members of the Church and all Americans to begin now to reflect more intently on the meaning and importance of the Constitution, and of adherence to its principles.” (Ensign, Nov. 1973, p. 90.)

“May I urge every Latter-day Saint and all Americans in North and South America to become familiar with every part of this document. Many of the constitutions of countries in South America have been patterned in large measure after that of the United States. We should understand the Constitution as the founders meant that it should be understood. We can do this by reading their words about it, such as those contained in the Federalist Papers. Such understanding is essential if we are to preserve what God has given us.”

Source: President Ezra Taft Benson
The Constitution — A Glorious Standard
General Conference, April 1976

Topics: Education; US Constitution

[W]e must learn the principles of the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding Fathers.

Have we read the Federalist papers? Are we reading the Constitution and pondering it? Are we aware of its principles? Are we abiding by these principles and teaching them to others? Could we defend the Constitution? Can we recognize when a law is constitutionally unsound? Do we know what the prophets have said about the Constitution and the threats to it?

As Jefferson said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be” (Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, 6 Jan. 1816).

Source: President Ezra Taft Benson
Our Divine Constitution
General Conference, October 1987

Topics: US Constitution

32. And now I desire that this inequality should be no more in this land, especially among this my people; but I desire that this land be a land of liberty, and every man may enjoy his rights and privileges alike, so long as the Lord sees fit that we may live and inherit the land, yea, even as long as any of our posterity remains upon the face of the land.

Source: Mosiah 29:32

Topics: America; Liberty

The Meaning of Freedom

Although the promised land was a land of liberty for the people of Nephi under the reign of the righteous kings, this liberty depended more on the people’s obedience to the commandments of God than on the presence or absence of kings (2 Nephi 1:7). It is difficult to envision a people more free than those in the days of Benjamin and Mosiah. They were free to believe, worship, and act as they pleased, restrained only by the laws of justice and mercy which had been revealed “by the hand of the Lord” (Mosiah 29:25). As defined by Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “Free agency . . . means an exercise of the will, the power to choose; . . . freedom [means] the power and privilege to carry out [one’s] choices” (38). The transition from kings to judges did not increase anyone’s free agency, but it did give everyone an increased freedom to act, accompanied by an equal weight of responsibility. Government by the voice of the people gives the people the greatest possible latitude to act out those choices which their God-given free agency allows them to make.

Source: Byron R. Merrill
Mosiah, Salvation Only Through Christ, p. 119 - 120

Topics: Free Agency

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