The Constitution of
the United States
In December 1833, the
Savior affirmed in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith that he had
established the Constitution “by the hands of wise men whom I raised up into
this very purpose” (D&C 101:80). He also told the Saints that they were
justified in befriending the constitutional laws of the land (see D&C
98:5-10). And in the 1837 dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple, the Prophet
pled, “May those principles, which were so honorably and nobly defended,
namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever”
(D&C 109:54).
In another
revelation, the Savior further declared that this Constitution was given for
the “rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles;
that every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity,
according to the moral agency which I [God] have given him, that every man may
be accountable” for his own actions (D&C 101:77-78).
Shortly thereafter,
the governor of Missouri issued an extermination order against the Saints in
that state. They were mercilessly murdered and driven from the state by mobs
during the winter of 1838-39; the Prophet Joseph and others were unjustly
imprisoned in the ironically named Liberty Jail. Despite these unlawful and
unconstitutional assaults, the Prophet Joseph later affirmed his faith on the
Constitution: “The Constitution of the United States is a glorious standard; it
is founded in the wisdom of God. It is a heavenly banner; it is to all those
who are privileged with the sweets of its liberty, like the cooling shades and
refreshing waters of a great rock in a thirsty and weary land. It is like a
great tree under whose branches men from every clime can be shielded from the
burning rays of the sun . . . The Constitution of the United States is true” (Smith,
History of the Church, 3:304).
The Prophet was
inspired to warn, however, that if such abuse of the law were to continue unchecked,
it would lead to the loss of much freedom and liberty. The first known
statement of Joseph in this regard was made July 19, 1840: “Even this nation
will be on the verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground and when
the Constitution is on the brink of ruin this people will be the staff upon
which the nation shall lean and they shall bear the Constitution away from the
very verge of destruction” (Joseph Smith Papers, Church History Library, Box 1,
March 1, 1844, as cited in D. Michael Stewart, “I Have a Question,” Ensign,
June 1976, 64-65).
Eliza R. Snow later
recalled: “I heard the Prophet Joseph Smith say, if the people rose and mobbed
us and the authorities countenanced it, they would have mobs to their hearts’
content. I heard him say that the time would come when this nation would so far
depart from its original purity, its glory and its love of freedom and
protection of civil and religious rights, that the constitution of our country
would hang as it were by a thread” (Eliza R. Snow, quoted in Edward W.
Tullidge, Women of Mormondom [New York: Gullidge and Crandall, 1877],
401). As early as 1843, Joseph noted that the Constitution was already under
siege: “The different states, and even Congress itself, have passed many laws diametrically
contrary to the Constitution of the United States” (Teachings of the Prophet
Joseph Smith, 279).
Despite the
corruption and challenges in our country, modern Presidents of the Church have
called the Constitution a “sacred document” and have continued to bear witness
of the increasingly important role the divine principles of the Constitution
will play for the future of America and for the entire world. During World War
II, at the dedicatory prayer for the Idaho Falls Temple in September 1945,
President George Albert Smith prayed:
As we look about in
the world among the various countries, we find philosophies and forms of
government the effect of which is to deprive men of their free agency, but by
reason of thy timely warning to us, we know that they are not approved of
three. Since the God of this choice land is Jesus Christ, we know that his
philosophy of free agency should prevail here. Thou didst amply demonstrate
this great principle to us by raising up wise men for the very purpose of giving
us our Constitutional form of government . . . There are those, our Heavenly
Father, both within and without our borders, who would destroy the
constitutional form of government which thou hast no magnanimously given us,
and would replace it with a form that would curtain, if not altogether deprive,
man of his free agency. We pray thee, therefore, that in all these matters thou
wilt help us to conform our lives to thy desires, and that thou wilt sustain us
in our resolve so to do. We pray thee that thou wilt inspire good and just men
everywhere to be willing to sacrifice for, support, and uphold the Constitution
and the government set up under it and thereby preserve for man his agency . .
.
We pray that kings
and rulers and the peoples of all nations under heaven may be persuaded of the
blessings enjoyed by the people of this land by reason of their freedom under
thy guidance and be constrained to adopt similarly governmental systems, thus
to fulfil the ancient prophecy of Isaiah that “ . . . out of Zion shall go
forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (George Albert Smith,
“Dedicatory Prayer . . . Idaho Falls Temple,” Improvement Era, October
1945, 564). (W. Jeffrey Marsh, “A Prophet-Statesman: Joseph Smith in the Public
Square,” in Mark E. Mendenhall, Hal B. Gregersen, Jeffrey S. O’Driscoll, Heidi
S. Seinton, and Breck England, eds., Joseph and Hyrum: Leading as One [Provo,
Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2010], 205-31, here,
pp. 215-17)