While
reading excerpts from sermons of President George Albert Smith, I came across
the following
showing his high view of the US Constitution. While I would not believe it to
be as inspired as the Decalogue (do note that he couches it in the language of “to
me” and “my feeling” when he states such), it does show the importance of the
US Constitution, including the right to bear arms and freedom of speech (which
many “progressives” are actively trying to subvert—something I hope my US-based
readers will fight tooth and nail as freedom of speech is one of the very first
freedoms quashed by oppressive organizations and governments):
The Constitution
Our Heavenly Father raised up the very men
that framed the Constitution of the United States. He gave us the greatest
palladium of human rights that the world knows anything about, the only system
whereby people could worship God according to the dictates of their
consciences, without, in any way, being molested, when the law itself was in
effect. Now that is what the Lord gave to us. That is the Constitution of our
country. Yet, we have people who would like to change that and bring some of
those old forms of government, that have ailed absolutely to make peace and
happiness and comfort any place in the world, and exchange what God has given
us—the fulness of the earth and the riches of liberty and happiness. There are
those who go around whispering and talking and saying, “Let us change this
thing.”
I am saying to you that, to me, the
Constitution of the United States of America is just as much from my Heavenly
Father as the Ten Commandments. When that is my feeling I am not going to go
very far away from the Constitution, and I am going to try to keep it where the
Lord started it, and not let anti-Christs come into this country that began
because people wanted to serve God.
People who came here did so that they might
honor God without molestation. They did some very foolish and unwise things,
but after a while the Lord took a hand. He was ready to organize his church,
and so he raised up men who knew to frame the Constitution of our great
country, and made it possible for an organization, such as is in this house
tonight, to enjoy the blessings that we have enjoyed all these years, sometimes
under difficulties of course, but not the trials and distresses that other
countries have had. (George Albert Smith, Priesthood Meeting, April Conference,
1948, as cited in Sharing the Gospel with
Others: Excerpts from the Sermons of President Smith [comp. Preston Nibley;
Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1948], 204-5)
