What is freedom? What is liberty? Does it mean license to do evil? No, indeed it does not. To be free means to liberate ourselves from the bondage of sin. We, in this country, boast of our human liberty and we have great reason to be proud of the liberty that we enjoy under our Constitution; but after all is said and done it is only a measure of civil liberty, but the greatest measure to be found among all the governments of the world. We sometimes boast of being in the land of the free, the home of the brave. Nevertheless, we are not free until we have overcome evil—until we liberate ourselves from the bondage of sin.

Source: Elder Rulon S. Wells
General Conference, April 1930

Topics: Freedom

The people of that land [Russia] had good reason to rise up against such conditions and all sympathy should be extended to them in their struggle for liberty; but no sooner have they liberated themselves from this condition of thralldom till the Soviet seeks to plunge them into the still more deadly slavery of atheism. These Soviet masters are still greater oppressors and tyrants than any who have ever preceded them, for they have even undertaken to prevent them from serving God in any form whatever, and when men cease to serve God, at that moment they begin to serve the devil, which means slavery. Such rulers have no conception of human rights. What they need is a Thomas Jefferson to write into their constitution a provision like this: The Soviet shall make no law respecting the establishment of any religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. They have surely broken down the establishment of a state religion, but they have also undertaken to prevent the free exercise of any religion—to deprive their people of their inherent rights. Tread lightly, ye powers that be, for this is holy ground. Even in our own land there are some who seem to think that our Constitution is unfriendly to religion. On the contrary, it is intended to encourage and protect all religions. It simply means “equal rights to all, but special privileges to none,”—no state religion, but no interference with any. This is holy ground. To congress it says “hands off.”

Source: Elder Rulon S. Wells
General Conference, April 1930

Topics: Freedom, Religious

Let us, then, as Latter-day Saints, rejoice in the precious boon of liberty secured unto us by that great palladium of our inherent rights, the Constitution, and manifest our loyalty to it by obedience to it and the laws which have been enacted in carrying out its provisions. Let us also rejoice in the free agency of man which permeates the Gospel of Jesus Christ and manifest our appreciation of it by our obedience to that Gospel which is the “Truth that will make us free.”

Source: Elder Rulon S. Wells
General Conference, April 1930

Topics: Liberty

Considered politically the world is upset at the present time in its opinion as to the best form of government. We are just witnessing the downfall of monarchies. Rising from these monarchial ruins have come democracy as exemplified chiefly in ‘Great Britain in her dominions and in the United States; the dictatorship of the proletariat as in Soviet Russia; and the Fascist regime in Italy, with Mussolini as chief dictator. It is apparent that men are seeking for a better form of government than most nations now have. Will they find it in the government by a dictator or in the government by the people, or in a combination of both?

One clear writer, Mr. Kirkpatrick, says that “Efficiency and progress are favored when the government is such that the local community has a great deal of responsibility of its own affairs and the central government has final authority to introduce those institutions and rules of procedure that have been shown to be permanently useful.”

Source: Elder David O. McKay
General Conference, April 1930

Topics: Government, Forms of

Our government was founded by inspiration, and the constitution of the United States was written as an expression of the freedom of the ages; a freedom that had been worked out and bled for by a people who looked always to God.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1930

Topics: Heavenly Interest in Human Events; US Constitution, Inspired

This Government was founded by the inspiration of God, for the founders prayed for inspiration, and they were inspired. When the members of the First Continental Congress convened at Carpenters Hall in Philadelphia, they turned to God for divine help.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1930

Topics: US Constitution, Inspired

After we gained our independence, and later had written the constitution of the United States, our government was organized with George Washington as president of the new Republic. With the advent of the government of the United States came many new movements in the history of mankind.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1930

Topics: America, History

When France sought to maintain her government, her civilization, by appealing to the rule of Reason, and God was out of the question, she soon came to difficulty. No nation can fully preserve its institutions and wholly disregard God. This government, mighty as it is, and greater as it may become, shall still have to observe and to honor the laws of God, the God of this land, who is Jesus Christ, according to the Book of Mormon prophets, or it cannot stand. So I believe that one of the finest practices to inculcate into the very hearts of men true, genuine honesty is to teach them to be honest before God.

Source: Elder Melvin J. Ballard
General Conference, October 1929

Topics: Individual, Improvement

Our doctrine of equality and liberty, and humanity and charity, comes from our belief in the brotherhood of man through the fatherhood of God. The whole foundation of enlightened civilization, in government, in society, and in business, rests on religion. Unless our people are thoroughly instructed in its great truths they are not fitted either to understand our institutions or to provide them with adequate support. For our independent colleges and secondary schools to be neglectful of their responsibilities in this direction is to turn their graduates loose with simply an increased capacity to prey upon each other. Such a dereliction of duty would put in jeopardy the whole fabric of society. For our chartered institutions of learning to turn back to the material and neglect the spiritual would be treason, not only to the cause for which they were founded but to man and to God.

We cannot remind ourselves too often that our right to be free, the support of our principles of justice, our obligations to each other in our domestic affairs, and our duty to humanity abroad, the confidence in each other necessary to support our social and economic relations, and finally, the fabric of our government itself, all rest on religion.

Its importance cannot be stressed too often or emphasized too much.

Source: President Calvin Coolidge

Topics: Individual, Improvement

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