When I was in Hamburg, I had to go and get a permit to authorize me to stay one month, and when that was done, I had to get another to authorize me to stay another month. The only thing we can do in that country at present is to baptize some of the citizens, and set them to preaching, as they have more rights and privileges than a stranger. No man has a right to receive his own son into his own house, if not a citizen, without a card; or a permit from the Government; and that is a free city, so called. We cannot know anything about the blessings and privileges we have as Americans, without becoming acquainted with the condition of other nations, this is one of the greatest countries in the world, but they (the Americans) do not appreciate their privileges.

Source: John Taylor
Journal of Discourses, Vol.1, p.28, August 22, 1852

Topics: Freedom

What is more curious than all the rest; it frequently occurs in all governments that corruption arises among the people; the people become corrupt, and to a great extent, it must affect the government also; no matter how good its form may be, the corruptions that arise among the body of the people, must in a great measure paralyze the head of the government. The Roman Catholics in Philadelphia were attacked by a lawless mob, and thousands turned out to demolish their churches and dwellings, and murder their people, and the perpetrators of such deeds are suffered to go unpunished—this fills the Nauvoo Legion with burning indignation. The legacy bequeathed to us by our forefathers was a constitution which will protect every man in his civil and religious rights; and where this Legion is, woe to him that infringes upon these constitutional liberties.

Source: George Albert Smith
Journal of Discourses, Vol.1, p.80, July 4, 1852

Topics: Government, Good

Upon you men of Israel—to whom the Priesthood of the Holy One has been given—there rests an obligation. You must serve the Lord and keep his commandments. It matters not what others may do, but for you there is only one course, and that is to be obedient to law, and to sustain the Constitution of this great land, and to sustain those influences and powers wherever they may be, that are calculated to uplift the human family.

Source: Elder George Albert Smith
General Conference, October 1922

Topics: Duty

The Standards by Which We Wish to be Judged

No true Americans desire to be judged by the Benedict Arnolds of our country, but they desire to be judged by men like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and others who have been devoted to the principles upon which this country stands and to the Constitution of our country, who respect that Constitution, who stand for the obeying of the laws of the country, and who have given their lives, or offered their lives, for the country. Those are the people whose lives we desire shall be the standard by which the United States of America shall be judged—not by the law-breakers. We desire that the Latter-day Saints shall be judged by those who keep the commandments of the Lord, who obey the word of wisdom, who obey the commandment to give to the Lord one-tenth of all that shall come into their hands, who attend to their family and their secret prayers, who are ready and willing to go, without money and without price, to the uttermost ends of the earth to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and who do it under the inspiration of the Spirit of the living God.

Source: President Heber J. Grant
General Conference, October 1922

Topics: Duty; Righteousness

The great statistician, Babson, in a convention of business men at Pittsburgh a few years ago, speaking on this question of law and order, which is a problem now with our large centers of population, said this:

“If you gentlemen are assuming that it is the police and government that preserve law and order in this nation, and create the conditions of safety in which you live and do business, you are mistaken. It is the church which makes this nation safe.”

Source: Elder Charles H. Hart
General Conference, April 1922

Topics: Righteousness

Let me give you an example of how “Mormonism” has contributed to the solution of the social problem of mankind. No one will deny the fact that the idealism of Christianity is the highest known to humanity. And when it comes to government, the principles of the Government of the United States are the most democratic and idealistic ever worked out by statesmen. The “Mormon” Church has brought people of twenty-seven different nationalities together and, uniting them in a common purpose, has caused them to look to the highest ideals religiously and politically. When a society is united on the same principles of life and are agreed to the same ideals, it is a demotic type, as the Socialists express it.

Source: Elder Levi Edgar Young
General Conference, April 1922

Topics: Cooperation

The Lord has said, “I will fortify this land against all other nations.” The danger is not from without, but from within, as the Book of Mormon plainly points out from secret combinations of men giving their first allegiance to their secret combination. That is the danger for after awhile these combinations will be contending one against the other until anarchy is apt to prevail, crime becomes rampant and danger to the existence of our government with its glorious Constitution is great, unless the people turn unto the Lord and seek Him.

Source: Elder Charles W. Nibley
General Conference, April 1922

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

Importance of the Ownership of Land, Danger of Borrowing.

The great importance attached to this condition of debt, and the ownership of land upon which people live, is illustrated in the law given by the Lord, for the government of ancient Israel. Under this law it was impossible to transfer the title to land from the original owner, who had received it as a heritage, to the permanent possession of another. It might pass temporarily into the hands of strangers, but at the lapse of fifty years, when the great jubilee came, amid rejoicing and thanksgiving, the land reverted to the original owner, or his heirs, and another opportunity was given for independent existence. We have no such guarantee, once our heritage passes from us, it can only be recovered by infinite toil, and too often, not at all.

I do not wish to be understood to mean, by my remarks, that debt should never be incurred. That no circumstance can justify the borrowing of money, but I do say without hesitation that it is better never to be in debt, that it would be better never to borrow money, and I wish to warn my brethren and sisters of the danger which confronts us because of the great burden of debt which we are saddling upon our backs, and the backs of our children, a burden under which I fear they will faint, and fall by the way.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1921

Topics: Debt

In a despotism, an absolute monarchy, where the king rules, and the people only submit, great is the obligation of the king, but the individual citizen’s obligation is correspondingly less. In our own government, where the people rule, each individual citizen is a ruler in the nation and great is his responsibility; great are the obligations that rest upon him by reason of that citizenship, for he himself is a ruler, a sovereign, and helps to form and fashion the government of which he is one of its rulers. If we have good government it is because the individual citizens are good. If we have a bad government it is because the individual citizens are bad. That applies not only to the nation at large, but to the state, to the county and to the city.

Source: Elder Rulon S. Wells
General Conference, October 1921

Topics: Government, Forms of; Responsibility

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