My brethren and sisters, in common with you I have enjoyed the quiet, the peace, and the hope of this conference. It is my earnest prayer-which I hope shall be fortified by-yours that I may say nothing today which will mar that spirit, but on the contrary will help to build it up.

Tribute and Counsel to Choir

I should like again to pay tribute to the beautiful music which we have had during this conference-the Singing Mothers, the Manti Choir, the Hawaiian Chorus, and now this morning our wonderful Tabernacle Choir. I can assure you that perhaps nothing we have ever done in the Church has been more effective in bringing before the people of the world a message of peace, of good will, of faith, and of hope, than the work of this choir. They, combined with the organ, speak with a spiritual authority which is felt by all of those who listen; and I am sure you pray with me that their work may be continued, that their ardor may be increased, but above and beyond all that individually and collectively their spirituality shall be built up. Because I wish to tell them and to tell you that their message will travel to the ends of the earth, as the Lord designs it, only if they shall live in accordance with the laws and the principles of the Gospel. It need not be thought by any of them that he is but one of a number, and therefore his life does not count; they live under as strict a law as the old laws of Moses, where the ills of one were visited upon the whole body.

So, to each and every one of them I lend not only encouragement, but I give to them a word of advice and caution: They must live in accordance with the principles of the Gospel if they are to perform the mission to which they are called.

Sustaining Governments and Laws a Fundamental Precept

I desire, my brethren and sisters, to speak upon a matter than which nothing is nearer to my heart in this world. I want to speak of it in soberness, in sincerity, and with all the earnestness I can command. The matter about which I wish to speak is the Constitution of the United States, and the Government provided for and set up under it.

The Twelfth Article of Faith reads:

We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

That is one of the fundamental precepts of our faith.

Governments Instituted of God

At a general assembly held in Kirtland on August 17, 1835, the Saints adopted a series of statements regarding human government. They are wise and as far-reaching as the Articles of Faith themselves, and I wish to read some of the paragraphs therefrom. They were given after the mobbings, the plunderings, the assassinations of and part of our experiences in Missouri. They were uttered by a people, who, judged by human standards, had every reason to feel that their government had failed, and that they might not hopefully and successfully look thereto for their protection. The first paragraph of that Declaration (Section 134) reads as follows:

We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man. . . .

Accountable to the Lord

Thus is declared in this first clause the origin of human government. The paragraph continues:

and that he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them. . . .

Therefore, every man who takes on a responsibility by virtue of assuming office in worldly government, is responsible to the Lord himself for the way in which he carries it out. I am sure there is here something to give pause to every Latter-day Saint who seeks the franchise of his fellow citizens in order that he may rule over them. This paragraph continues:

both in making laws and administering them, for the good and safety of society.

So that, whether a man takes office in the legislature, or in the executive branch of government, or in the judicial branch, he becomes, by virtue of that assumption of office, responsible to the Lord himself under the decrees of this Church.

Paragraph No. 2 reads:

We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual. . . .

And I ask you to note the declaration which now follows these words, a declaration, I repeat, made after the mobbings and plunderings of Missouri, when apparently government had failed. A declaration made after the people had tried the United Order and had not been able to live up to it, made after they had been rocked and torn by hardships and persecutions, against which they should have been protected. The paragraph continues:

will secure to each individual, the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.

These are the great basic elements of free, ordered society and government.

Two Declarations of Equal Wisdom

May I place here alongside this Declaration of our own people, that well-known and inspired utterance of those who framed the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

These two great declarations, the one of the Church and the other of the fathers of our country, stand side by side, equal in their wisdom and in their present timeliness. Each was born of oppression and persecution.

Freedom of Worship

The 4th paragraph of that Declaration adopted at Kirtland reads as follows:

We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others, That, my brethren and sisters, is fundamental with us. We are universal in our tolerance and in our respect for the opinions of others. We feel we may rightfully ask for the same consideration for ourselves.

This also was announced in our Articles of Faith, the eleventh article reading:

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

The final clauses of the fourth paragraph of the Declaration read:

But we do not believe that human law has the right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the civil magistrates should restrain crime but never control conscience; should punish guilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul.

I will ask you to carry those last clauses in your mind until I reach a later portion of what I hope to say.

World-Wide Church

The 5th paragraph of this great Declaration reads as follows:

We believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments. . . .

In that Declaration the Church visualized not alone an existence here in the United States of America, but it visualized an existence in all parts of the world, as the Church has grown to be and to exist, and it laid down the rule of conduct by which all Latter-day Saints should be guided, no matter where they live or to what flag they owe allegiance. Thus the Church visualized its great destiny-a world-wide Church among all nations.

Personal and Property Rights Protected

This paragraph continues:

And that all governments have a right to enact such laws as in their own judgments are best calculated to secure the public interest; at the same time, however, holding sacred the freedom of conscience.

I ask you to hold in mind that sentiment and that principle also.

I shall read only one more of the twelve paragraphs of the Declaration; I now read the 11th paragraph:

We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded.

The foregoing were the declarations of this people on the principles underlying human government; this people still adheres to these principles.

Loyalty to Rule of Law

I pass now to the divine word regarding our own government. While the Saints were still undergoing suffering in Missouri, and after they had suffered much from the mobs who were driving them from their homes, and mis-treating and mal-treating them, the Lord gave a revelation to the Church, in the course of which he said (I am reading from Section 101 of the Doctrine and Covenants):

And again I say unto you, those who have been scattered by their enemies, it is my will that they should continue to importune for redress, and redemption, by the hands of those who are placed as rulers and are in authority over you-

Notwithstanding all their sufferings, the Lord directs that they shall still have a loyalty to the rule of law. The revelation continues:

According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained 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 have given unto him . . .

Divine Word Regarding Human Government

The Lord is here declaring the scope and fundamental principle of the Constitution of the United States:

That every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. Therefore it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.

And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose.

To me, my brethren and sisters, that statement of the Lord, “I have established the Constitution of this land,” puts the Constitution of the United States in the position in which it would be if it were written in this book of D&C itself. This makes the Constitution the word of the Lord to us. That it was given, not by oral utterance, but by the operation of his mind and spirit upon the minds of men, inspiring them to the working out of this great document of human government, does not alter its authority.

Religion and the Constitution

The first Congress of the United States, when it began to consider the operations of the government under the Constitution, became impressed that there was not in that document, as originally drawn, any so-called Bill of Rights; there were in the document no provisions which should keep the people free, which should protect them in their daily lives, nor guarantee to them the great liberties which the Declaration of Independence declared were the heritage of men. Accordingly this Congress proposed to the original states the first ten amendments to the Constitution, and it is significant, I am sure, of the influence which the Lord was at that time bringing to bear upon the minds of men, that the very first clause of the very first amendment declared:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Thus the very first thing which our fathers sought to secure for themselves and for their posterity was freedom to worship as they wished. I do not need to call to your minds the trials and persecution which this people have suffered in the past, in order to bring home to you the conviction that nothing else in the great document, the Constitution, is so important to this people as is this guarantee of religious freedom, because underneath and behind all that lies in our lives, all that we do in our lives, is our religion, our worship, our belief and faith in God. We need the Constitution and its guarantees of liberty and freedom more than any other people in the world, for, few and weak as we are, we stand naked and helpless except when clothed with its benign provisions.

Endeavoring to Establish Modern Paganism

So well known is this, so thoroughly is it understood that the dictators of the world are now seeking to take hold of the religion of the people over whom they rule. They are doing away, or trying to, with the churches of Christianity. They are trying to establish, even in great and progressive nations, a modern paganism. That can never be done under the Constitution of the United States, and that is why its protection and preservation come to us as one of the most vital duties we can have in life.

Fundamentals of Constitution God-Given

One of the most important things that we can do for the Church is to stand behind the Constitution of the United States. That does not mean, and no reasoning person would suppose that it meant, that that Constitution may not from time to time be changed as the needs of the people would seem to require. But it does mean that that Constitution should be changed only under the urge of great necessity, and then only in accordance with its great underlying concepts. It does mean that the great fundamental elements of the Constitution are God-given, for he said so. It does mean to me as an individual that the Constitution of the United States and my adherence to it and support of it is a part of my religion.

I have about the Constitution that same sort of conviction that I have about the other doctrines that we are taught, for I believe its precepts are among the doctrines of the Church, and I believe that the Lord will change and modify from time to time those details of its provisions which are ancillary to its great principles; he will cause us-those who live under it-to modify it in accordance with our needs; but the fundamental principles of it we may not sacrifice.

Elemental Principles of Constitution

We may not abrogate the great principles that the majority must rule; that we shall live under a written Constitution; that we shalt be governed by people chosen by the free, untrammeled, and uncompelled will of the people; that there shall be an absolute guarantee of our personal liberties, as also of our rights to property, and to the protection therefor; that there shall continue freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion; that the punishment of common crime and misdemeanors shall remain the function of state, county and municipal government; that there shall be three great and wholly independent branches of government-the executive, the legislative, and the judicial; that the determination of the constitutionality of legislative acts shall continue in the judiciary; that no power shall exist in one branch of government to delegate its power and authority to another; that the rights and power of the executive branch of the government shall continue to be merely that of executing the aw; that the federal government shall continue to guarantee to every state a republican form of government. If time permitted I could mention other principles of like importance to these.

No Dictatorship in America

A proper understanding of the Constitution of the United States makes clear that, under it, there is no room in America for a dictatorship. There are those in subordinate positions in government, there are those among us, citizens of this country, who are looking forward to some sort of overturning which would make opportunity for the establishment of some other sort of government than that provided by our Constitution. It is my faith and belief that these overtures, these revolutionists, are but few, but they are attacking the citadel of our liberties, they are attacking the guarantee of the freedom of our worship, and the Latter-day Saints can not be numbered among them.

In Need of Convictions

Convictions are the great need of the people of the world today. Men need to be convinced of something. They need religious convictions, and it is not, in the first instance so important what those convictions may be, looking to the peace and ordered condition of the world. The people of the world need convictions regarding righteousness in civic and political life; they need convictions on the eternal verities of right and wrong. Great masses of people everywhere in the world are wandering aimlessly in their religious, in their intellectual, in their social, and in their civic lives, without any guiding principles; “every wind of doctrine” strains the moorings that have held them for generations.

This must be changed.

Our Opportunity and Mission

This great audience is a demonstration that among the Latter-day Saints there still remain convictions in all of the fields of human endeavor and activity which I have named. It is our opportunity to make of these convictions our glory. It is our opportunity and our duty to make of these the leaven that “leaveneth the whole lump.” In so far as we fail to do this, we shall fail in the mission which the Lord gave to us, and shall not reach the destiny which he has set for us.

My brethren and sisters, this nation of ours has a record of achievement behind it that we may not lightly cast aside, for it is builded upon the experiences of men during the ages that are past. Consider our growth and our development, consider what we are, consider how we have come to be what we are, contemplate this government of ours, this heritage which our fathers bought with their lives and bequeathed to us, and then do not lightly thrust aside the great fundamentals of our national life for something yet untried.

May the Lord be with us at all times, under all circumstances; may he bring into our lives a burning desire to uphold the Constitution, a living faith in its inspired origin, that we may always be found among those who shall support it to the last breath. May God give us this I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

I plan to say something today about the Constitution of the United States of America – its Framers and some of its essential principles – America, the land choice above all other lands – for our great and priceless liberties. including the security of our homes and property, our freedom of speech and of the press, freedom of religion and the free exercise thereof, indeed freedom itself and its liberties, as our fathers knew and enjoyed, as also ourselves, depend upon its preservation. As there is much detail and as I wish to be as accurate as I may be, I have written out what I wish to say.

It seems wise to remind ourselves of these matters because some people belittle that great document and its fundamental principles, sometimes to the point of derision. Sometimes we forget it.

Constitution “Outmoded”

These defamers say that the Constitution, and our government under it, are outmoded; not responsive to present day conditions of life and living; not sufficient to meet and solve present-day problems; and that we need a modern, up-to-date system of government. They let us know what should be done to meet their ideas and plans, which seem always to run to despotism.

I have observed that numbers of these defamers take advantage to the utmost of every liberty and freedom created and protected by the Constitution in order to destroy it and its guarantees. so to make easy the setting up of a tyranny that would deprive the common man of his freedom and liberties under it, so permitting these defamers to set up a government that would give place, power, and privilege to them in a despotism to be imposed upon the mass of mankind. We have witnessed this very despotism. There would be a Kremlin in every country on the globe, all under the super-Kremlin in Moscow.

Ten Commandments “Outmoded”

One class of these defamers are the same persons who declare the Ten Commandments, the basic law of the civilized world, to be outmoded, although these Commandments still speak with their divine power and authority against the same evils existing today, each one of them, not one missing, even as they existed in the days of Moses; Commandments that proclaim righteous principles that are as valid and applicable today as when, on Mt. Sinai, they were written on slabs of stone by the finger of God. Sinners would get rid of the divine rebukes and penalties prescribed for their wickedness and would treat as naught the promised rewards for that righteous life that would rob them of the fleshly pleasures of sin.

Sermon on the Mount “Outmoded”

The same people declare the Sermon on the Mount to be outmoded. irresponsible to the needs of the people of today. The divine truths of the Sermon: its surpassing loveliness, indeed the sublimity of its ethical teachings, do not, say they, harmonize with their modern life where we see greed, ambition, selfishness, dishonesty, deceit, falsehood, and licentiousness thrive and on which they live and riot. We have noted this experiment also.

If all that God and his Only Begotten taught that will lead us to the immortality and eternal life that is God’s declared glory, could be wiped out and forgotten, leaving only Satan and his work the followers of Satan would, in their ignorance, have reached a Satanic heaven.

Organization of Constitutional Convention

The Constitution of the United States was framed in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, May 14, 1787, to September 17, 1787. The Framers were delegates sent thereto by the Thirteen Colonies. Seventy-four were appointed; fifty-five reported at the Convention; nineteen did not attend; thirty-nine signed the Constitution. Representatives signed from each of the Colonies except Rhode Island.

Bill of Rights

The Constitution as signed lacked a Bill of Rights, though these rights were discussed in the Convention. As the Colonies voted to ratify the Constitution, each proposed amendments to remedy the omission. Over one hundred amendments were proposed. Some forty to fifty were eliminated as duplications. Seventeen were finally approved by the House of the First Congress; the Senate reduced the number to twelve, which were sent to the various legislatures for ratification. The final returns showed that ten had been ratified.

Historical Experience of Framers

The Framers and their fathers had in the preceding seventy-five years, fought through four purely European wars – in America between the British and her colonists on one side, and the French and her Indian allies on the other. The colonists had little, if any, concern in the European issues. They fought because the homelands fought. In the first three of these wars the colonists lost much, suffered massacres. Yet at the end or each war, each European government returned, each to the other, the gains either had made in America. The colonists had heavy losses, had no gains except the experience that builded up over the decades, experience that aided them. first, in winning their independence, and, thereafter, in establishing this Government.

No wonder Washington in his Farewell Address counseled against foreign entanglements. He stated the reasons drawn from colonial experience.

The French and Indian War, the last of the four, broke the French foothold on the Continent. Washington participated in that war as an officer and suffered in Braddock’s defeat at Fort Duquesne.

During a part of this whole period, .the colonial legislatures had been fighting against royal representatives; in the earlier decade the fathers of the Framers carried on these contests; in the latter years, many of the Framers were themselves involved.

Movement for Independence

The movement for independence began soon after the close of the French and Indian War; for example, the Committees of Correspondence. Some of the very best minds and ablest men in the Colonies participated. Framers served on these earlier revolutionary bodies. Many Framers were members of the Continental Congress. When the Revolution came, they had the experiences, bitter as to both men and money, that came to that Congress in raising troops and materials of war. They had knowledge. Some were experienced in the actual problems of conducting a war. One at least, Franklin, had seen distinguished service in the diplomatic field and continued so to serve.

Characters of Framers

The Framers were men of affairs in their own right. Some were distinguished financiers. More than half of them were university men, some educated in the leading American colleges – Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, William and Mary; others in the great colleges of Great Britain – Oxford, Glasgow, Edinburgh. Washington and Franklin were among those who had no college education. Altogether there were seventy-four delegates appointed; fifty-five who reported at the Convention, “all of them,” it has been said, “respectable for family and for personal qualities.” Of these fifty-five, only thirty-nine were present at the signing. Nineteen failed to attend.

They were men of varied political beliefs. Some were Federalists; some anti-Federalists. Some seemed favorable to a mere revamping of the Articles of Confederation.

No Political “Blueprint” Available

The amazing thing is that there was not in all the world’s history a government organization even among confederacies, that could be taken by the Framers; as a preliminary blueprint for building the political structure they were to build. Franklin declared:

“We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.”

They had een in session for about a month (June 26, 1787) when Madison declared:

.’. ..as it was more than probable we were now, digesting a plan which in its operation would decide forever the fate of Republican Govt we ought not only to provide every guard to liberty that its preservation could require, but be equally careful to supply the defects which our own experience had particularly pointed out.”

Who the Framers Were

A little further detail about the thirty-nine Framers who actually signed the document will be useful.

Of those thirty-nine signers, twenty-six had seen service in the Continental Congress. They knew legislative processes and problems. Thirteen had served both in the Continental Congress and in the Army. What a wealth of experience they had obtained in both legislative and executive duties! Of the nineteen who served in the Army, seventeen had served as officers – they knew the problems of armed forces in the field; and of these seventeen, four had served on Washington’s staff.

Let us go down the roll: Washington, the “Father of his Country,” and Madison, sometimes called the “Father of the Constitution,” were later Presidents of the United States, Hamilton (a financial genius) was Secretary of the Treasury under Washington. McHenry (Maryland) was Secretary of War under Washington. Randolph (Virginia) acted as Attorney General for Washington and later as his Secretary of State. Rutledge (South Carolina), a distinguished jurist. was later Chief Justice in the United States Supreme Court. Oliver Ellsworth {absent when the Constitution was signed) was also later a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Blair. Paterson, and Wilson were later Justices of the Supreme Court. (Wilson had been on the Board of War and Ordnance in the Second Continental Congress.)

Benjamin Franklin. a philosopher and scientist, had behind him years of most distinguished and successful diplomatic service. King {Massachusetts) was later a Senator and thereafter Minister to Great Britain, Charles Pinckney (South Carolina) was Minister to Spain. Dickinson (Delaware) founded Dickinson College, and Johnson (Connecticut) was President of Columbia College. Gerry (Massachusetts) was later Vice-President of the United State, and Ingersoll (Pennsylvania) a candidate for the Vice-Presidency).

Gorham (Massachusetts) and Mifflin (Pennsylvania) had been Presidents of the Continental Congress; Clymer {Pennsylvania), Continental Treasurer; Robert Morris (Pennsylvania) .Superintendent of Finances; Sherman (Connecticut ) a member of the Board of War and Ordnance, all in the Continental Congress.

We might add, as among the most distinguished of this group, the other Morris (Gouverneur) from Pennsylvania, and the other Pinckney (Charles Cotesworth) from South Carolina.

There were many other distinguished men. They were distinguished before the time of the Convention; they won great distinction after. Men of affairs and influence, they were in their respective Colonies, later States. They were all seasoned patriots of loftiest patriotism. They were not backwoods men from the far-off frontiers, not one of them.

What a group of men of surpassing abilities, attainments, experience, and achievements! There has not been another such group of men in all the one hundred seventy years of our history, no group that even challenged the supremacy of this group. Gladstone solemnly declared:

“The American Constitution is the most wonderful, work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”

When God Plows His Furrow

When God puts his hand to the plow, his furrow is deep and straight, clear to the end. God gave us the heritage; ours is the duty to cherish and protect it. We have, as a people, a special relationship to these men and their work.

In a revelation to Joseph at Kirtland at the time of some of the darkest days in Missouri (December 16, 1833), when there seemed to be no protection for the Saints from the civil authorities, the Lord spoke. He told the people to continue to “importune for redress. …

“According to the law’s and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained 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 have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.

“Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.

“And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.”

(D & C 101:77–80.)

A little time before this, the Lord declared that the constitutional “principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before me,” and that the people should “renounce war and proclaim peace.” (August 6, 1833, ibid., 98:5, 16. )

When (1833) the Lord gave these approving revelations, the Constitution with its coterminous Bill of Rights, was almost fifty years old. Two amendments only had then been made; one (1798) concerned the Federal judicial power. the other (1804) the election of President and Vice President. Some thirty years later (1865, 1868) came the next two amendments terminating slavery and guaranteeing citizenship and its protection, so meeting the principle declared by the Lord in 1833 regarding bondage or men, one to another.

In the prayer of dedication of the Kirtland Temple, the Prophet prayed:

” ..may those principles. which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever.” (ibid.,109:54, March 27, 1836. )

In 1835 (August 17), at a general assembly of the Church held at Kirtland, a far-reaching ‘Declaration of Belief regarding Governments and Laws in general” was adopted by the Saints. (ibid., 134.)

These Framers of the Constitution were the men whom the Lord “raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood,” making it ready for the blessings proclaimed for all.

Preparation of Framers

No more clearly does it appear that Moses was so trained in the royal Egyptian courts that he could lead ancient Israel out of bondage, or that Brother Brigham was so trained, in directing the exodus of the Saints from Missouri to Nauvoo, that he could lead modern Israel from the mobbings and persecutions of the East to the freedom of the mountain fastnesses of the West; neither one was more clearly trained for his work than these Framers were trained for theirs – rich in intellectual endowment and ripened in experience. They were equally as the others in God’s hands; he guided them in their epoch- making deliberations in Independence Hall.

The Framers were deeply read in the facts of history; they were learned in the forrns and practices and. systems of the governments of the world, past and present; they were, in matters political, equally at home in Rome, in Athens, in Paris, and in London; they had a long, varied, and intense experience in the work of governing their various Colonies; they were among the leaders of a weak and poor people that had .successfully fought a revolution against one of the great Powers of the earth; there were among them some of the ablest, most experienced and seasoned military leaders of the world.

As to all matters under consideration by the Convention, the history of the world was combed for applicable experiences and precedents.

The whole training and experiences of the colonists had been in the Common Law, with its freedoms and liberties even under their kings. They knew the functions of legislative, executive, and judicial arms of government.

Some Constitutional Principles

Time is not available now to consider in detail the work of the Convention nor the Constitution that was framed. A very few principles only, and they among the basic ones, may be mentioned. You all know them; they are now merely recalled to your minds. Sometimes we miss the import of them.

Three Independent Branches

First – The Constitution provided for three departments of government – the legislative., the executive, and the judicial.

These departments are mutually independent the one from the other. Each department was endowed with all the powers and authority that the people through the Constitution conferred upon that branch of government – the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, respectively.

No Encroachment by One Branch Upon Another

No branch of the government might encroach upon the powers conferred upon another branch of government. In order to forestall foreseeable encroachments, the Convention provided in the .

Constitution itself for a very few invasions by one or the other; into one of the other departments, to make sure that one department should not absorb the functions of the other or encroach thereon, or gain an overbalancing power and authority against the other. These have been termed “checks and balances.”

Non-delegation of Powers

A third principle that was inherent in all the provisions of the Constitution was that none of the departments could delegate its powers to the others. The courts of the country have from the first insisted upon the operation of this principle. There have been some fancy near-approaches to such an attempted delegation, particularly in recent years, and some unique justifying reasoning therefor, but the courts have consistently insisted upon the basic principle, which is still operative.

An examination of the records of the Convention will show how anxiously earnest the Framers were to set up these and other principles of free government.

No Kings in America

The Convention seems to have experienced no really serious difficulty in setting up a judiciary department, nor, in certain aspects, the legislative department with its powers, until it came to) those powers which dealt with matters that in some governments had been regarded as belonging to the executive. You will recollect that practically all of these Framers had suffered under George III and his Minister, Lord North. So they abandoned the British model, for, as Randolph said, “. ..the fixt genius of the people of America required a different form of Government.” This ruled out royalty.

It might be noted that Washington, as the Revolution closed, had definitively scotched at Newburgh, the kingship idea.

Kings and America

Of course, the Framers did not know (no living mortal then knew) that centuries before a prophet of the Lord had declared as to America:

“Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things which we have written.” (Ether 2:12.)

Nor did the Framers know (again, no living mortal then knew) that centuries after this prophecy, but still centuries before the Framers met, another prophet had declared:

“And this land shall be a land of liberty unto the Gentiles, and there shall be no kings upon the land, who shall raise up unto the Gentiles.” (2 Nephi 10:11.)

The unhappy, short-lived experiences of the Dom Pedros in Brazil and of Maximilian in Mexico seem the exceptions that prove the rule. The Spirit of the Lord was leading.

The National Executive

In providing for the executive department, there was considerable discussion as to whether the executive department should be one person or several. Commenting upon a proposal for three, Randolph said their unity would be ”as the foetus of monarchy.”

Who should choose, elect, or appoint (the terms were used almost interchangeably) the Chief Executive was exhaustively debated; so was the problem of the length of his term, from one year, to Hamilton’s during “good behaviour,” including the question whether he should be ineligible for re-election, and whether he should be subject to impeachment.

Power to Declare War

But one of their most searching examinations related to the war powers of government, including the power to declare war. It became clear very early in the debates that as Chief Executive, the President should execute the laws passed by Congress. But he was also made Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and of the State Militia when called into the service of the United States. The delegates were fearfully anxious over this function of government. There was one suggestion that the Commander in Chief should not personally go into the field with the troops, so fearful were they of his power.

Where War Powers Rest

But in whom should rest the so-called war powers? This was the urgent problem, It soon became clear that the Convention was unalterably opposed to endowing the President with these war powers; it was conceded he should have the power to repel invasions, but not to commence war, which meant he could not declare war.

Chief Executives Conceived as Plain Human Beings

Some of the arguments made in this connection, involving the possibility of a military usurper, remind one of the potential calamities pictured by Lincoln in his prophetic Lyceum Address, where he sketched what an ambitious, fame-and-power-seeking executive might do,

Various other potential actions by the executive were explored, Future Presidents of the Republic were conceived as including men capable of doing the things that ambitious men in power had done over the ages, Men were still human, had the same urges and ambitions. The earnest effort was to make as nearly impossible as could be, the malfeasances of the past by men in high executive office in the future; and seemingly perhaps beyond everything else as a practical matter, to prevent the President from taking us into war of his own volition. The Framers therefore provided that the war powers, including the declaration of war, should rest exclusively in the Congress, both by express provisions and, as the record shows, by the conscious intent of the Framers.

The Net Position of the National Executive

The net result may be stated thus: as Chief Executive the President was to enforce the laws passed by Congress, including those passed by Congress in the exercise of the war powers that were explicitly and exclusively possessed by Congress; as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and of the Militia of the States when called into the actual service of the United States. he was to direct the military operations thereof in the field. with the powers incident thereto.

These principles should never be forgotten by any free, liberty-loving American. the kind of American the Constitution and the Bill of Rights make of us, and in which they were designed to protect us.

The People Are Sovereign

Furthermore, under our form of government, we the people of the United States. as the Preamble to the Constitution declares, formed this government. We alone are sovereign. We are wholly free to exercise our sovereign will in the way we prescribe. The sovereignty is not personal, as under the Civil Law. The Constitution expressly provides the only way in which we may change our Constitution. We may well repeat again: We the people have all the powers ,we have not delegated away to our government, and the institutions of government have such powers and those only as we have given to them. The total residuum of powers, including all rights and liberties not. given up by us to Federal or State Governments, is still in us, to remain so till we constitutionally provide otherwise. Under the Civil Law that basically governs Continental Europe, the people have only such rights as a personal sovereign or his equivalent bestows, the residuum remaining in him or them. Wherever and whenever powers are exercised by any person or branch of our government that are not granted by the Constitution, such powers are to that extent usurpations.

The Constitution and Ourselves

Will not each of you ask yourself this question: What would probably have happened if Joseph Smith had been born and had attempted to carry on his work of the Restoration of the Gospel and the Holy Priesthood if he had been born and had sought to go forward in any other country in the world?

Must we go far to seek why God set up this people and their government, the only government on the face of the earth, since the Master was here, that God has formally declared was set up at the hands of men whom he raised up for that very purpose, and the fundamental principles of which he has expressly approved?

Constitution Is Part of My Religion

Having in mind what the Lord has said about the Constitution and its Framers, that the Constitution should be “established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh,” that it was for the protection of the moral agency, free agency, God gave us, that its “principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind,” all of which point to the destiny of the free government our Constitution provides, unless thrown away by the nations – having in mind all this, with its implications, speaking for myself, I declare that the divine sanction thus repeatedly given by the Lord himself to the Constitution of the United States as it came from the hands of the Framers with its coterminous Bill of Rights, makes of the principles of that document an integral part of my religious faith. It is a revelation from the Lord. I believe and reverence its God-inspired provisions. My faith, my knowledge, my testimony of the Restored Gospel, based on the divine principle of continuous revelation, compel me so to believe. Thus has the Lord approved of our political system, an approval, so far as I know, such as he has given to no other political system of any other people in the world since the time of Jesus.

The Constitution, as approved by the Lord, is still the same great vanguard of liberty and freedom in human government that it was the day it was written. No other human system of government, affording equal protection for human life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, has yet been devised or vouchsafed to man. Its great principles are as applicable, efficient, and sufficient to bring today the greatest good to the greatest number, as they were the day the Constitution was signed. Our Constitution and our Government under it, were designed by God as an instrumentality for righteousness through peace, not war.

Our Constitutional Destiny

Speaking of the destiny that the Lord has offered to mankind in his declarations regarding the scope and efficacy of the Constitution and its principles. we may note that already the Lord has moved upon many nations of the earth so to go forward. The Latin American countries have followed our lead and adopted our constitutional form of government. adapted to their legal concepts, without compulsion or restraint from us. Likewise, the people of Canada in the British North America Act have embodied great principles that are basic to our Constitution. The people of Australia have likewise followed along our governmental footpath. In Canada and in Australia, the great constitutional decisions of John Marshall and his associates are quoted in their courts and followed in their adjudications, I repeat. none of this has come because of force of arms. The Constitution will never reach its destiny through force.

God’s principles are taken by men because they are eternal and true and touch the divine spirit in men. This is the only true way to permanent world peace, the aspiration of men since the beginning. God never planted his Spirit, his truth, in the hearts of men from the point of a bayonet.

The Framers had their dark days in their work. There were discouragements. there were hours of near hopelessness for some. Yet. as they were engaged in God’s work, and he was at the helm. we know it was as certain as the day dawn, that Satan would be there also, with his thwarting designs.

But I see in their divers views, their different concepts. even the promotion of their different local interests. not the confusion which challenged Franklin, but a searching, almost meticulous study and examination of the fundamental principles involved. and the final adoption of the wisest and best of it all – I see the winnowing of the wheat. the blowing away of the chaff.

Franklin’s Prayer

On one of these dark days, the venerable Franklin, ripe in years and in experience, arose and spoke to the Convention (June 28, 1787). Said he:

“The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance & continual reasons with each other – our different sentiments on almost every question. several of the last

producing as many noes as ays, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been

running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of

their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

“In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not

hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with, Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. – Our prayers, Sir, were

heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?

“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future age. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.”

So spoke Franklin.

My Witness

Out of more years, but of far. far less wisdom and experience, I echo Franklin’s testimony “that God governs in the affairs of men,” and that without his concurring aid we shall build in vain, and “our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages.”

I bear my testimony that without God’s aid, we shall not preserve our political heritage neither to our own blessing, nor to the blessing of our posterity; nor to the blessing of the downtrodden peoples of the world.

In broad outline the Lord has declared through our Constitution his form for human government. Our own prophets have declared in our day the responsibility of the Elders of Zion in the preservation of the Constitution. We cannot, guiltless, escape that responsibility. We cannot be laggards, nor can we be deserters.

On the back of the chair in which Washington sat as President during the Convention, was carved a half-hidden sun, showing just above a range of hills. As the signing of the Constitution was about over, Franklin observed to some fellow delegates:

“I have often and often, in the course of the session. and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that (sun) behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.”

Such was the prophecy that marked the closing of the greatest political convention of all time, for the Lord was there working out his purposes in a system he could endorse.

God give us the power, each of us, to enshrine in our hearts the eternal truths of our Constitution; that come what may. we shall never desert these truths, but work always and unceasingly that, as Lincoln said, “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Such is my prayer, and I ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Last April my Church duties took me to Albania. Elder Hans B. Ringger and I were some of the first Western visitors to that newly opened country. We conferred with government officials about the reception our church’s missionaries would receive in Albania, which had banned all churches in 1967. They told us the government regretted its actions against religion, and that it now welcomed churches back to Albania. One explained, “We need the help of churches to rebuild the moral base of our country, which was destroyed by communism.” During the past months I have heard this same reaction during discussions with government and other leaders in Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine.

In contrast, consider what we hear about religion from some prominent persons in the United States. Some question the legitimacy of religious-based values in public policy debates. Some question the appropriateness of churches or religious leaders taking any public position on political issues.

Provoked by that contrast, I will use this occasion to speak about the role of religion-based values and religious leaders in public policy debates.

Questions of Right and Wrong

Fundamental to the role of religion in public policy is this most important question: Are there moral absolutes? Speaking to our BYU students earlier this year, President Rex E. Lee said:

“I cannot think of anything more important than for each of you to build a firm, personal testimony that there are in this life some absolutes, things that never change, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. They are eternal truths, eternal principles and, as Paul tells us, they are and will be the same yesterday, today, and forever.” 1

Unfortunately, other educators deny the existence of God or deem God irrelevant to the human condition. Persons who accept this view deny the existence of moral absolutes. They maintain that right and wrong are relative concepts, and morality is merely a matter of personal choice or expediency. For example, a university professor reported that her students lacked what she called “moral common sense.” She said they believed that “there was no such thing as right or wrong, just good or bad arguments.” 2 In that view, even the most fundamental moral questions have at least two sides, and every assertion of right or wrong is open to debate.

I believe that these contrasting approaches underlie the whole discussion of religious values in public policy. Many differences of opinion over the role of religion in public life simply mirror a difference of opinion over whether there are moral absolutes. But this underlying difference is rarely made explicit. It is as if those who assume that all values are relative have established their assumption by law or tradition and have rendered illegitimate the fundamental belief of those who hold that some values are absolute.

One of the consequences of shifting from moral absolutes to moral relativism in public policy is that this produces a corresponding shift of emphasis from responsibilities to rights. Responsibilities originate in moral absolutes. In contrast, rights find their origin in legal principles, which are easily manipulated by moral relativism. Sooner or later the substance of rights must depend on either the voluntary fulfillment of responsibilities or the legal enforcement of duties. When our laws or our public leaders question the existence of absolute moral values, they undercut the basis for the voluntary fulfillment of responsibilities, which is economical, and compel our society to rely more and more on the legal enforcement of rights, which is expensive.

Some moral absolutes or convictions must be at the foundation of any system of law. This does not mean that all laws are so based. Many laws and administrative actions are simply a matter of wisdom or expediency. But many laws and administrative actions are based upon the moral standards of our society. If most of us believe that it is wrong to kill or steal or lie, our laws will include punishment for those acts. If most of us believe that it is right to care for the poor and needy, our laws will accomplish or facilitate those activities. Society continually legislates morality. The only question is whose morality and what legislation.

In the United States, the moral absolutes are the ones derived from what we refer to as the Judeo-Christian tradition, as set forth in the Bible—Old Testament and New Testament.

Despite ample evidence of majority adherence to moral absolutes, some still question the legitimacy of a moral foundation for our laws and public policy. To avoid any suggestion of adopting or contradicting any particular religious absolute, some secularists argue that our laws must be entirely neutral, with no discernable relation to any particular religious tradition. Such proposed neutrality is unrealistic, unless we are willing to cut away the entire idea that there are moral absolutes.

Of course, not all moral absolutes are based on traditional religion. A substantial segment of society has subscribed to the environmental movement, which Robert Nisbet, a distinguished American sociologist, has characterized as a “national religion,” with a “universalized social, economic, and political agenda.” 3 So far as I am aware, there has been no responsible public challenge to the legitimacy of laws based on the environmentalists’ set of values. I don’t think there should be. My point is that religious values are just as legitimate as those based on any other comprehensive set of beliefs.

Religion and the Public Sector

Let us apply these thoughts to the role of religions, churches, and church leaders in the public sector.

Some reject the infusion of religious-based values in public policy by urging that much of the violence and social divisiveness of the modern world is attributable to religious controversies. But all should remember that the most horrible moral atrocities of the twentieth century in terms of death and human misery have been committed by regimes that are unambiguously secular, not religious.

Even though we cannot reject religious values in law-making on the basis of their bad record by comparison with other values, there are examples of hostility to religious values in the public sector. For example, less than a decade ago, the United States Department of Justice challenged a federal judge’s right to sit on a case involving the Equal Rights Amendment on the ground that his religious views would prejudice him. The judge was Marion Callister. The religious views were LDS. In that same decade, the American Civil Liberties Union took the position that any pro-life abortion law was illegitimate because it must necessarily be founded on religious belief. 4

A few years ago some Protestant and Jewish clergymen challenged a federally financed program to promote abstinence from sexual activity among teenage youngsters. The grant recipients included BYU and some Catholic charities in Virginia and Michigan. The ACLU attorney who filed this challenge declared that “the ‘chastity law’ is unconstitutional because it violates the requirement for separation of church and state” because taxpayer dollars “are going to religious institutions, which use the funds to teach religious doctrines opposing teen-age sex and abortion.” 5 In the meantime, the “value” judgments that permit public schools to distribute birth control devices to teenagers supposedly violate no constitutional prohibition because the doctrine that opposes chastity is secular.

During this same period, Professor Henry Steele Commager criticized the Moral Majority and the Roman Catholic Church for “inject[ing] religion into politics more wantonly than at any time since the Know-Nothing crusade of the 1850’s.” Writing in a New York Times column, this distinguished scholar asserted that “what the Framers [of the U. S. Constitution] had in mind was more than separating church and state: it was separating religion from politics.” While conceding that no one could question the right to preach “morality and religion,” Commager argued that churchmen of all denominations crossed an impermissible line “when they connect morality with a particular brand of religious faith and this, in turn, with political policies.” 6

Apparently, churchmen can preach morality and religion as long as they do not suggest that their particular brand of religion has any connection with morality or that the resulting morality has any connection with political policies. Stated otherwise, religious preaching is okay so long as it has no practical impact on the listeners’ day-to-day behavior, especially any behavior that has anything to do with political activity or public policy.

As we know, the idea that there is an absolute right and wrong comes from religion, and the absolute values that have influenced law and public policy are most commonly rooted in religion. In contrast, the values that generally prevail in today’s academic community are relative values.

I have read serious academic arguments to the effect that religious people can participate in public debate only if they conceal the religious origin of their values by translating them into secular dialect. In a nation committed to pluralism, this kind of hostility to religion should be legally illegitimate and morally unacceptable. It is also irrational and unworkable, for reasons explained by BYU law professor Frederick Mark Gedicks:

“Secularism has not solved the problem posed by religion in public life so much as it has buried it. By placing religion on the far side of the boundary marking the limit of the real world, secularism prevents public life from taking religion seriously. Secularism does not teach us to live with those who are religious; rather, it demands that we ignore them and their views. Such a ‘solution’ can remain stable only so long as those who are ignored acquiesce in their social situation.” 7

Fortunately, the Supreme Court has never held that citizens could not join together to translate their moral beliefs into laws or public policies even when those beliefs are derived from religious doctrine. Indeed, there are many sophisticated and articulate spokesmen for the proposition that the separation of church and state never intended to exclude religiously grounded values from the public square. For example, I offer the words of Richard John Neuhaus:

“In a democracy that is free and robust, an opinion is no more disqualified for being ‘religious’ than for being atheistic, or psychoanalytic, or Marxist, or just plain dumb. There is no legal or constitutional question about the admission of religion to the public square; there is only a question about the free and equal participation of citizens in our public business. Religion is not a reified ‘thing’ that threatens to intrude upon our common life. Religion in public is but the public opinion of those citizens who are religious.

“As with individual citizens, so also with the associations that citizens form to advance their opinions. Religious institutions may understand themselves to be brought into being by God, but for the purposes of this democratic polity they are free associations of citizens. As such, they are guaranteed the same access to the public square as are the citizens who comprise them.” 8

No person with values based on religious beliefs should apologize for taking those values into the public square. Religious persons need to be skillful in how they do so, but they need not yield to an adversary’s assumption that the whole effort is illegitimate. We should remind others of the important instances in which the efforts of churches and clergy in the political arena have influenced American public policies in great historical controversies whose outcome is virtually unquestioned today. The slavery controversy was seen as a great moral issue and became the major political issue of the nineteenth century because of the preaching of clergy and the political action of churches. A century later, churches played an indispensable role in the civil rights movement, and, a decade later, clergymen and churches of various denominations were an influential part of the antiwar movement that contributed to the end of the war in Vietnam.

Many sincere religious people believe there should be no limitations on religious arguments on political issues so long as the speaker genuinely believes those issues can be resolved as a matter of right or wrong.

I believe that questions of right and wrong, whether based on religious principles or any other source of values, are legitimate in any debate over laws or public policy. Is there anything more important to debate than what is right or wrong? And those arguments should be open across the entire political spectrum. There is no logical way to contend that religious arguments or lobbying are legitimate on the question of abstinence from nuclear war by nations but not on the question of abstinence from sexual relations by teenagers.

Church Participation in Political Debate

What limitations should churches and their leaders observe when they choose to participate in public debate on political issues?

I emphasize at the outset that I am discussing limits to guide all churches across a broad spectrum of circumstances. I am not seeking to define or defend a Mormon position. As a matter of prudence, our church has confined its own political participation within a far smaller range than is required by the law or the Constitution. Other churches have chosen to assert the full latitude of their constitutional privileges and, in the opinion of some, have even exceeded them.

Where should we draw the line between what is and is not permissible for church and church-leader participation in public policy making?

At one extreme, we hear shrill complaints about political participation by any persons whose political views are attributable to religious beliefs or the teachings of their church. The words “blind obedience” are usually included in such complaints. Complaints there are, but I am not aware of any serious or rational position that would ban religious believers from participation in the political process. The serious challenges concern the participation of churches and church leaders.

Perhaps the root fear of those who object to official church participation in political debates is power: They fear that believers will choose to follow the directions or counsel of their religious leaders. Those who have this fear should remember the celebrated maxim of Jefferson: “Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” 9 Some may believe that reason is not free when religious leaders have spoken, but I doubt that any religious leader in twentieth-century America has such a grip on followers that they cannot make a reasoned choice in the privacy of the voting booth. In fact, I have a hard time believing that the teachings of religions or churches deprive their adherents of any more autonomy in exerting the rights of citizenship than the teachings and practices of labor unions, civil rights groups, environmental organizations, political parties, or any other membership group in our society.

I submit that religious leaders should have at least as many privileges as any other leaders, and that churches should stand on at least as strong a footing as any other corporation when they enter the public square to participate in public policy debates. The precious constitutional right of petition does not exclude any individual or any group. The same is true of freedom of speech and the press. When religion has a special constitutional right to its free exercise, religious leaders and churches should have more freedom than other persons and organizations, not less.

If churches and church leaders should have full rights to participate in public policy debates, should there be any limits on such participation?

Of course there are limits that apply specially to churches and church officials, as manifest in the United States Constitution’s prohibition against Congress’s making any law respecting an establishment of religion. Some linkages between churches and governments are obviously illegitimate. It would clearly violate this prohibition if a church or church official were to exercise government power or dictate government policies or direct the action of government officials independent of legal procedures or political processes.

Fundamentally, I submit that there is no persuasive objection in law or principle to a church or church leader taking a position on any legislative matter, if it or he or she chooses to do so.

Now, relative to church participation in public debate, when churches or church leaders choose to enter the public sector to engage in debate on a matter of public policy, they should be admitted to the debate and they should expect to participate in it on the same basis as all other participants. In other words, if churches or church leaders choose to oppose or favor a particular piece of legislation, their opinions should be received on the same basis as the opinions offered by other knowledgeable organizations or persons, and they should be considered on their merits.

By the same token, churches and church leaders should expect the same broad latitude of discussion of their views that conventionally applies to everyone else’s participation in public policy debates. A church can claim access to higher authority on moral questions, but its opinions on the application of those moral questions to specific legislation will inevitably be challenged by and measured against secular-based legislative or political judgments. As James E. Wood observed, “While denunciations of injustice, racism, sexism, and nationalism may be clearly rooted in one’s religious faith, their political applications to legislative remedy and public policy are by no means always clear.” 10

Finally, if church leaders were also to exhibit openness and tolerance of opposing views, they would help to overcome the suspicion and resentment sometimes directed toward church or church-leader participation in public debate.

In summary, I have pointed out that many U.S. laws are based on the absolute moral values most Americans affirm, and I have suggested that it cannot be otherwise. I have contended that religious-based values are just as legitimate a basis for political action as any other values. And I have argued that churches and church leaders should be able to participate in public policy debates on the same basis as other persons and organizations, favoring or opposing specific legislative proposals or candidates if they choose to do so.

Politicians sometimes seek to use religion for political purposes, and they sometimes even seek to manipulate churches or church leaders. Ultimately this is always self-defeating. Whenever a church (or a church leader) becomes a pawn or servant of government or a political leader, it loses its status and the credibility it needs to perform its religious mission.

Churches or their leaders can also be the aggressors in the pursuit of intimacy with government. The probable results of this excess have been ably described as “the seduction of the churches to political arrogance and political innocence or even the politicizing of moral absolutes.” 11

The relationship in the world between church and state and between church leaders and politicians should be respectful and distant, as befits two parties who need one another but share the realization that a relationship too close can deprive a pluralistic government of its legitimacy and a divine church of its spiritual mission. Despite that desirable distance, government need not be hostile to religion or pretend to ignore God.

On 25 June 1988, in Williamsburg, Virginia, I signed the Williamsburg Charter on behalf of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1 Written by a group of farsighted U.S. religious, political, and community leaders, that charter celebrates and reaffirms religious liberty as the foremost freedom of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The sponsors’ invitation to participate explains that they were seeking “a fresh articulation of the ground rules for relating religion and public life in our time.”

Our church was one of six “prominent American faith communities” whose representatives were invited to make brief statements as they signed the Charter. This is what I said on that occasion:

“The people called Mormons have known the sting of official repression and the lash of popular fury. We endorse the need and join in this celebration and reaffirmation of religious liberty.

“The Declaration of Independence had posited these truths to be ‘self-evident’: that all men ‘are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights’ and that governments are instituted ‘to secure these rights.’

“The first words of the Bill of Rights provide the dual guarantees of religious liberty. The subsequent words that guarantee the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly provide the means to make our liberties secure, but it is the initial guarantee of religious freedom that explains why all these other liberties are desired.

“In our nation’s founding and in our Constitutional order, religious liberty is the motivating and basic civil liberty.

“In its Articles of Faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declares: ‘We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.’ ” (A of F 1:11.)

Freedom of Religion: The Basic Civil Liberty

The Williamsburg Charter declares: “The First Amendment Religious Liberty provisions have both a logical and historical priority in the Bill of Rights.” Indeed, religious liberty is the oldest of the internationally recognized “human rights,” providing motivation, precedent, and support for the growth of other freedoms, such as the freedoms of speech, the press, and assembly. For many of the Founding Fathers, and for many Americans today, religious liberty is the basic civil liberty because faith in God and his teachings and the active practice of religion are the most fundamental guiding realities of life. Thus, for many citizens, religious liberty provides the reason all other civil liberties are desired.

The Declaration of Independence affirms that governments are instituted to secure the inalienable rights with which men and women are endowed by their Creator. The United States Constitution was established to provide a practical and official guarantee of those rights. Its provision securing religious liberty was divinely inspired, not only to bless the inhabitants of this nation but also to stand as an example to all the nations of the world.

Though a fervent believer in these things, I am certainly not naive about the realities of constitutional law. As a law clerk in the United States Supreme Court, I saw its nine justices grapple with the task of interpreting the First Amendment. Later, as a lawyer and law professor for more than twenty years, I did some of that grappling myself. As legal counsel, I helped draft the Bill of Rights for the Illinois Constitutional Convention of 1970. As a Justice of the Utah Supreme Court for three and a half years, I had the sworn duty to uphold and interpret the constitutions of our state and nation. What I have to say about the subject of religious liberty draws upon those experiences.

Restoring Religion to an Honorable Place in Public Life

The Williamsburg Charter reminds us that despite our constitutional prohibition against establishing a state religion, in many areas of the United States during the nineteenth century there was “a de facto semi-establishment of one religion in the United States: a generalized Protestantism given dominant status in national institutions, especially in the public schools.” In contrast, the Charter continues, “In more recent times, and partly in reaction, constitutional jurisprudence has tended, in the view of many, to move toward the de facto semi-establishment of a wholly secular understanding of the origin, nature, and destiny of humankind and of the American nation.”

Over time, these “wholly secular understandings” have attained “a dominant status,” until there is a “striking absence today of any national consensus about religious liberty as a positive good.” The Charter concludes: “The renewal of religious liberty is crucial to sustain a free people that would remain free.”

Support for the Williamsburg Charter is not a renunciation of the secular or a suggestion that one must choose between religion on the one hand and the whole body of secular learning on the other. That is a false dichotomy.

The hundreds of signers of the Williamsburg Charter, who come from every segment of life in the United States, are seeking to offset the symbol and pattern of hostility to religion and indifference to religious liberty that have characterized many court decisions, much media publicity, and some public understandings for more than a quarter of a century. They seek to restore religion to an honorable place in public life.

To “Live with Each Other’s Deepest Differences”

That task is nicely characterized by the question posed in the Charter, “How do we live with each other’s deepest differences?” In the United States, we have seen what the Charter calls “a breakdown in understanding of how personal and communal beliefs should be related to public life.” Recapturing that understanding is a task that will require a high order of intelligence, tolerance, and goodwill, but it is vital that we do so.

Learning how to “live with each other’s deepest differences” is very important for Latter-day Saints, whose mission requires them to be gracious in the few areas where they are in the majority and welcomed as considerate and productive in the rest of the world, where they are in the minority.

The Law: Hostile or Neutral toward Religion?

In my view, our current condition is rooted in the 1962 United States Supreme Court decision that the New York State Board of Regents could not require public school children to recite a prayer authored by the Regents. The essence of that decision was expressed in this sentence from the Court’s opinion:

“It is neither sacrilegious nor anti-religious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave the purely religious function to the people themselves, and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance.” 2

Elsewhere in its opinion the Court explained: “Government in this country, be it state or federal, is without power to prescribe by law any particular form of prayer which is to be used as an official prayer in carrying on any program of governmentally sponsored religious activity.” 3

When the school prayer cases were decided, I interpreted them to forbid state-authored and state-required prayers. As such, the cases, I thought, were correctly decided. What I did not foresee, but what was sensed by persons whose vision was far greater than my own, was that these decisions—defensible and probably even essential as rulings on the facts before the Court—would set in motion a chain of legal and public and educational actions that would bring us to our current circumstance, in which we must reaffirm and even contend for religious liberty.

In short, many understand the law today as being hostile rather than neutral toward religion—as forbidding all public prayers rather than simply prohibiting state-authored and state-required prayers in public schools. Instead of just preventing instances of state-sponsored religion in the public schools, the school prayer cases have unleashed forces that have sometimes been used to prevent the free exercise of religion.

At the time the first school prayer cases were decided, President David O. McKay saw the direction of those decisions with prophetic vision. In December 1962, he said: “By making that [New York Regents’ prayer] unconstitutional, the Supreme Court of the United States severs the connecting cord between the public schools of the United States and the source of divine intelligence, the Creator himself.”

Then, he offered this farsighted caution: “By law, the public schools of the United States must be non-denominational. They can have no part in securing acceptance of any one of the numerous systems of belief regarding God and the relation of mankind thereto. Now let us remember and emphasize that restriction applies to the atheist as well as to the believer in God.” 4

Six months later, just after the Supreme Court’s decision forbidding Bible-reading in the schools, 5 President McKay said:

“Recent rulings of the Supreme Court would have all reference to a Creator eliminated from our public schools and public offices.

“It is a sad day when the Supreme Court of the United States would discourage all reference in our schools to the influence of the phrase ’divine providence’ as used by our founders of the Declaration of Independence.

“Evidently the Supreme Court misinterprets the true meaning of the First Amendment, and are now leading a Christian nation down the road to atheism.” 6

It is clear from President McKay’s references that he was concerned about the direction and long-range effect of these decisions. History shows that his concern was well founded.

A Developing Gulf between Religion and Public Life

In the beginning, eminent legal scholars like Dean Erwin N. Griswold of the Harvard Law School ridiculed the idea that the Supreme Court’s school prayer decisions would lead to a great gulf between religion and public life. In a notable lecture published in the University of Utah Law Review, Dean Griswold said: “To say that [these great provisions of the First Amendment] require that all trace of religion be kept out of any sort of public activity is sheer invention.” 7

However, as time went by, the combatants on both sides of this debate took more and more extreme positions. They joined issue on controversies that compelled the courts to rule on ever-more-technical details on the offering of prayers or the use of religious symbols in public places.

What the legal scholars did not foresee is the extent to which the school-prayer and Bible-reading decisions would shift the burden of proof with respect to religious practices in public life. In the past, religion had been an accepted part of public life in the American tradition; it now became something that had to prove its right to remain in the public square. The principles first announced in the early 1960s had by the 1970s hardened into mechanical constitutional formulas that could be interpreted in ways that were hostile to religion. Too many of the lawyers trained during this period have come to accept these wooden formulas as axioms, with the result that constitutional notions of religious liberty have been impoverished.

For example, the observance of a moment of silence as an alternative to school prayer was first suggested in a United States Supreme Court opinion. Twenty years later, after legislatures in nearly half of the states had passed laws authorizing a moment of silence in the public schools, the Supreme Court held one such law unconstitutional. 8

Gradually, what had been a supportive relationship between church and state (and at times excessively so) has become what many perceive as a hostile one. Now many see religion as suspect, while many others see government as repressive toward religion. It is now essential that a wise and public-spirited group like the Williamsburg Charter Foundation come forward for a purpose that would have seemed remarkable a century ago—to remind us of our religious heritage and to declare the value of religious liberty to a nation that was, in truth, founded to protect it.

The Need for Education on the Role of Religion in a Pluralistic Society

The Williamsburg Charter Foundation has wisely begun its effort by focusing on public education. Affirming that education is incomplete if it does not give attention to the role of religious liberty in American life, the Foundation has called for the public schools to teach about religious liberty in a pluralistic society and has prepared materials for doing so.

The need for such teaching should be obvious. As a result of misunderstanding the importance of religious liberty in our Constitutional order, many citizens and even some educators have come to consider it bad taste or even illegal for public school teachers even to mention religious influences or commitments. No wonder we suffer an appalling ignorance of our political and cultural origins.

In a study done for the Department of Education, New York University psychologist Paul Vitz documented the extent to which textbook authors have avoided references to God or to religion. Vitz concluded that many students could never learn from reading their history textbooks “that religion has played a significant role in American history.” For example:

• One American history textbook defines pilgrims as “people who make long trips.” Another text lists three hundred important events in American history, and only three of the three hundred have anything to do with religion. No religious event is listed after 1775—an apparent judgment that each of the other items, including the appearance of an electric streetcar on the streets of Richmond, Virginia, in 1886, was more important than any religious event in America since 1775.

• A reader for sixth-graders includes an Isaac Singer story in which a boy with a problem prays to God for himself and his goat, and when the problem is resolved, the boy thanks God. But the public school text omits the name of God and declares that the boy thanks “goodness.”

• Textbook discussions of pre-Civil War abolitionism and the recent civil rights movement commonly skim over or totally omit the religious origins of these great forces and the religious motivations of many who furthered them. 9

Removing the name of God and ignoring the influence of religious motivations distort facts and cloud understanding. If gold were someone’s God (and there are such people), could you give an accurate account of the western U.S. settlements attributable to the Gold Rush without mentioning the word gold?

The Williamsburg Charter Foundation is not the first group to call for more public school study about religion. In a 1986 editorial, the Washington Post called attention to a study by People for the American Way, which showed that American history textbooks hardly mention religion as a force in U.S. history. The Post observed: “The absence of any discussion of a subject that has motivated, inspired, and, at times, torn apart important elements of the population is ridiculous. … A student who has no curiosity about the beliefs of others will never be an educated person.” 10

In 1987 the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, an influential public education group, called for action by educators, textbook publishers, and civic leaders to halt what they called the “rigorous exclusion” of religion from school textbooks and curricula. 11

I have been gratified at the rapidity with which a supportive consensus has developed on this subject. It has caused me to wonder whether this consensus just grew rapidly in the last few years or whether it was always there—hidden, but too shy to emerge in an atmosphere of hostility and distrust.

I prefer to believe that individuals have always had the good sense to understand that a person cannot be educated without understanding religious traditions and conflicts. One cannot understand the great music of the Western world, such as music composed for the mass or Handel’s Messiah, and one cannot understand the great art of the Western world, such as the religious themes of the masters of the Middle Ages, without understanding the religious beliefs and traditions of the people by whom and for whom those works of art were created. It is surely true that a reader cannot understand the language and imagery of the great literature of the Western world without understanding the Bible.

The Williamsburg Charter Foundation proposes a public school curriculum titled “Living with Our Deepest Differences—Religious Liberty in a Pluralistic Society.” In this course of study, (1) the curriculum approach to religion is academic, not devotional; (2) the school strives for student awareness but does not press for student acceptance of religion; (3) the school sponsors study about, not practice of, religion; (4) the school exposes students to a diversity of religious views but does not impose any particular one; (5) the school educates about all religions but does not promote or denigrate any of them; and (6) the school may inform about various beliefs but does not seek to conform the student to any particular one. In my opinion, this is an appropriate program. It would serve the interests of the United States and its citizens.

Misunderstandings about Prayer in Public Settings

I conclude by referring to a current controversy that I think exemplifies the public misunderstanding from which we need to be liberated by educational efforts such as those of the Williamsburg Charter Foundation.

Initially, the United States Supreme Court’s school prayer decision outlawed only state-authored and state-required prayers. Later, the courts forbade any prayers in public school classrooms, even those that were privately composed or optional. The courts were concerned with the possibility that impressionable young students would be coerced by such publicly sponsored religious exercises. In contrast, the Supreme Court has clearly held that prayers at the beginning of a state legislative assembly are not forbidden. The Court reasoned that, unlike school children, legislators are adults, “presumably not readily susceptible to ‘religious indoctrination.’ ” 12

Despite the absence of coercion from prayers in adult settings, and despite the fact that prayers are frequently offered in legislative and other public meetings in every state in the union, 13 some have continued their efforts to force the abolition of prayers at government or other public meetings. As a consequence, immense resources of time and money have been devoted to thrashing out the constitutional limits on prayer in public places.

The Williamsburg Charter contains an insight that should help resolve such controversies: “It is false to equate ‘public’ and ‘government.’ In a society that sets store by the necessary limits on government, there are many spheres of life that are public but non-governmental.”

Similarly, I believe that much of the controversy over prayer in public places suffers from a failure to distinguish between governmental action and accommodation of private expression in a public place. The fact that prayer or other religious expression occurs in a public setting does not mean that the government is endorsing religion. It only means that public officials recognize the reality that many citizens have religious beliefs and care about religious matters.

A decision outlawing prayers in public school classrooms, which are tax-supported government institutions responsible for instructing impressionable youth, does not forbid prayers by and for adults in settings that are merely public, such as town meetings, patriotic programs, Parent-Teacher Association functions, and the like. Though offered in a public place, such prayers are personal—not governmental—devotions.

Some Recent Controversies

That distinction has been overlooked in some recent controversies in Utah.

A little more than two years ago, the American Civil Liberties Union pressed for the elimination of prayers at the beginning of Salt Lake County Commission meetings. The A.C.L.U. objected to the fact that most of the people who offered such prayers concluded them “in the name of Jesus Christ.” They claimed that this prayer language constituted an official government endorsement of the majority faith in Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members pray in that way. In what many interpreted as a generous and appropriate response to that concern, the county commission enlarged its list to invite representatives of every religious organization in the county to take a turn, in rotation, in offering prayers at commission meetings. This apparently settled the issue. 14

More recently, similar controversies have arisen over prayers offered in Utah high school graduation exercises. A suit filed on behalf of two students in one school district objected that the prayers were “denominational,” since they mentioned the name of Jesus Christ. The suit asked that such prayers be “non-denominational.” 15

Interpreting this as a plea for a court order requiring that the name of Jesus Christ not be used in prayers offered at a public high school graduation exercise, I thought of the first school prayer decision. In that case, the Supreme Court said government had no power to author prayers to be offered by its citizens. Before we acquiesce in the use of judicial power to indicate what words cannot be included in a prayer, we should remember that if it is no part of the business of government to write a prayer, then it is no part of the business of a court to censor a prayer.

The United States Supreme Court voiced that principle just six years ago in rejecting an argument that the prayers in a state legislative assembly were illegal because they were always offered by a chaplain of one religious denomination. The Court said: “The content of the prayer is not of concern to judges where, as here, there is no indication that the prayer opportunity has been exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief.” 16

Using this reasoning, I concluded that the attempt in Utah to have a court dictate what could not be included in a prayer would not succeed. But even a winning case can be expensive to defend, and in the graduation-exercise case, economic pressure forced a decision upon the school board. They evaluated the costs of resisting what would likely be a long court battle and concluded that it was not in the best interests of the school district to use its scarce resources in that way. Consequently, they announced that the high schools of that district will no longer have prayers as part of their graduation exercises. 17

A neighboring district announced that they would retain prayers in their schools’ graduation exercises, but they said they would be more careful to request “non-denominational prayers.” Similarly, the first district announced that they would continue to open their board meetings with prayer, but opened that particular session with what they called “a generic prayer.” 18

It is no part of the business of government to prescribe prayers or to censor them. Prayer is too sacred for its content to be the subject of a lawsuit. When the threat of a lawsuit causes someone to modify the content of a prayer, we are in desperate need of a Williamsburg Charter to remind us of the importance of religious liberty.

Tolerating Each Other’s Differences

If citizens of the United States cannot tolerate differences in the way others pray, we have suffered a tragic loss in the vitality of religious liberty. I am disappointed that anyone of any faith would abandon his or her chosen manner of prayer and offer a so-called “generic” prayer because someone threatened a lawsuit. Despite my own strong preferences, I would not even consider trying to influence a person of another faith to change the content of a public prayer, and I object to any use of legal pressures to accomplish such changes by anyone.

After I expressed this opinion in a speech last year in Boise, Idaho, a friend sent me a publication reporting a related opinion by a respected Protestant theologian. The newly-appointed chaplain (and former dean) of the Harvard Divinity School, Krister Stendahl, reportedly observed that in his school, with its tradition of pluralism, “it wasn’t quite kosher to mention Jesus [in a prayer]. You become so conscious of using a language which would be for everybody, so nobody was at home.” He reacted by stating his intent to “guard fiercely the freedom of every person to pray and speak in ways important to him or her—lest the specter of ‘pluralism’ mute authentic expression of devotion.” 19

Chaplain Stendahl made the following suggestion, which I believe is an appropriate procedure for one invited to offer a prayer in a public meeting containing persons of various faiths:

“It can never be wrong to pray in the presence of people of other faiths. But when one does that, one cannot use the word ‘we’ in an absolute sense, because that would mean that I surmise that only those who think like me are with me.”

Instead, he said, when preaching among those of other faiths—in a synagogue, for example, as he sometimes does—he is careful to speak in the first person. “I might say, ‘and this I pray, in the name of Jesus, who brought me into communion with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ I think it’s quite fair to mention my Jesus in the synagogue, but I should speak my own language and not we it.” 20

The Legality of Graduation Prayers

Appellate court opinions issued in the last several years have split on the legality of prayers at high school graduation exercises. 21 Judges are divided on the question, and the United States Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the controversy.

I am hopeful that the United States Supreme Court will reaffirm the attitude of accommodation voiced in its decision sustaining the constitutionality of released time for public school students to attend religious classes. In that case, decided in 1952, the Court said:

“We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. We guarantee the freedom to worship as one chooses. We make room for as wide a variety of beliefs and creeds as the spiritual needs of man deem necessary. We sponsor an attitude on the part of government that shows no partiality to any one group and that lets each flourish according to the zeal of its adherents and the appeal of its dogma. When the state encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, it follows the best of our traditions. For it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs. To hold that it may not would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.” 22

Some Possible Solutions

As the law stands today, school boards who are challenged on the legality of prayers offered on public ceremonial occasions have several alternatives.

They might continue to have such prayers and risk the possibility of expensive litigation, though the costs might be shared with other districts similarly situated.

They might abandon a long-standing practice of having such prayers and risk being seen as having been manipulated by a litigation strategy rooted in the reality that lawsuits are cheap to begin but expensive to defend. A small but determined minority can use the cost of litigation as an instrument of intimidation to coerce a majority to accept minority social, cultural, or even religious standards that could not or at least should not be imposed by legal process in a fully litigated case.

A school district might substitute a moment of silence in which all are invited to offer private devotions, but this could be seen as a compromise unacceptable to anyone.

In my view, the one alternative that is entirely unacceptable is for a school district to attempt to prescribe or censor prayers to be offered at any function in the district.

I close in the spirit of the Williamsburg Charter, by quoting the First Presidency in a statement made more than ten years ago:

“Those who oppose all references to God in our public life have set themselves the task of rooting out historical facts and ceremonial tributes and symbols so ingrained in our national consciousness that their elimination could only be interpreted as an official act of hostility toward religion. Our constitutional law forbids that.

“As the ruling principle of conduct in the lives of many millions of our citizens, religion should have an honorable place in the public life of our nation, and the name of Almighty God should have sacred use in its public expressions.” 23

May it always be so!

At the request of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve testified in support of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights on 13 May 1992. Only two other times has an LDS Church representative brought an official Church stance to Congress.

If passed, the bill, which has the sponsorship of 188 members of Congress and the support of a broad spectrum of religious and civil libertarian groups, would restore the standard that requires government officials to show a “compelling governmental interest” before interfering with religious practices.

The introduction of the bill came in the wake of the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Employment Division v. Smith. The Court did away with the compelling governmental interest clause, ruling that a state need only show that its action advances a legitimate government policy.

The following is the text of Elder Oaks’s testimony before the subcommittee:

Mr. Chairman, I am privileged to appear before you to testify on behalf of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in support of Congressional enactment of H.R. 2797, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. I am here to present the official position of our eight-million-member church at the request of its highest governing bodies, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, of which I am a member. As a general rule, our church does not take positions on specific legislative initiatives pending in Congress or state legislatures. Our action in this matter is an exception to this rule. It underscores the importance we attach to this congressional initiative to restore to the free exercise of religion what a divided Supreme Court took away in Employment Division v. Smith (1990).

I have had considerable personal experience with the Constitution and laws governing the free exercise of religion. Upon graduation from the University of Chicago Law School in 1957, I served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren. For a decade I was a professor of law at the University of Chicago. During the last year of that service, I was also the executive director of the American Bar Foundation. For nine years I was president of Brigham Young University, the nation’s largest church-related university. I then served for three and one-half years as a justice on the Utah Supreme Court. I concluded that service in 1984 when I was called to full-time service as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. My professional publications have included three books and numerous articles on the legal relationships between church and state.

History

The history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes called Mormon or LDS) in America illustrates the importance of requiring a “compelling governmental interest” before laws can be allowed to interfere with the free exercise of religion.

I know of no other major religious group in America that has endured anything comparable to the officially sanctioned persecution that was imposed upon members of my church by federal, state, and local government officials. In the nineteenth century our members were literally driven from state to state, sometimes by direct government action, and finally expelled from the existing borders of the United States.

On 27 October 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued an order to the state militia that the Mormons “must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary for the public good.” Three days later, segments of the Missouri militia attacked a small Mormon settlement at Jacob Haun’s mill. Seventeen men, women, and children were killed and thirteen more were wounded. After a reign of terror that included the burning of homes, the seizing of private property, the beating of men, and the raping of women, over ten thousand Mormons were driven from that state.

In the 1840s, after founder and Church President Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob while in state custody, Illinois state authorities supported or condoned the lawless element who evicted the Mormons from their cities and drove them across the Mississippi River to the West. This expulsion compelled the Mormons’ epic migration to the Great Basin, which was then beyond the borders of the United States.

The experience of the Mormon pioneers is analogous to the compelled migration of many of this country’s founding settlers—the Pilgrims, Separatists, Quakers, Catholics, and Puritans who fled England and Holland to escape religious persecution and to seek a sanctuary where they could practice their religion free from persecution.

I have a personal feeling for these persecutions, since some of my forebears came to America as refugees from religious persecution in their native lands, and most of my ancestors suffered with the Mormons in their earliest persecutions. For example, my third great-grandmother, Connecticut-born Catherine Prichard Oaks, was among the Mormons expelled from Missouri and later driven out of Illinois. Fleeing religious persecution, she died on the plains of Iowa, a martyr to her faith.

Following the pattern set by William Penn, whose 1682 constitution for the Quaker Colony of Pennsylvania had a model provision for safeguarding the religious liberties of its citizens, leaders of my church drafted a constitution for the proposed State of Deseret that contained a strongly worded guarantee of religious freedom. This proposed state applied for admission to the Union in 1849, but in the Compromise of 1850, Congress organized the Mormon areas into the Territory of Utah.

The persecutions continued. In the 1850s, the government of the United States, too willing to believe lies about conditions in Utah, sent an army of several thousand federal troops to subdue the supposedly rebellious Mormons.

From the 1860s through the 1880s, Congress and some state legislatures passed laws penalizing the religious practices and even the religious beliefs of the Latter-day Saints. Under this legislation, the corporate entity of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was dissolved and its properties were seized. Many Church leaders and members were imprisoned. People signifying a belief in the doctrine of my church were deprived of the right to hold public office or sit on juries, and they were even denied the right to vote in elections.

Most of these denials of religious freedom received the express approval of the United States Supreme Court. It was a dark chapter in the history of religious freedom in this nation. I have a personal feeling for this chapter as well. My grandfather’s oldest sister, my great-aunt Belle Harris, was the first woman to be imprisoned during the polygamy prosecutions. In 1883, when she was twenty-two years of age, she refused to testify before a grand jury investigating polygamy charges against her husband. Sentenced for contempt, she served three and one-half months in the Utah territorial penitentiary.

The Compelling Governmental Interest Test Must Be Restored

The conflict between individual rights to freely worship God and government attempts to regulate or interfere with religious practices remains today. For decades the United States Supreme Court adhered to the First Amendment guarantee of free exercise by requiring the state to demonstrate a “compelling governmental interest” before interference with religious freedom would be tolerated. This test struck an appropriate balance between the needs of government to establish rules for the orderly governance of our society and the rights of citizens not to be unduly restricted in their religious practices. In those instances where elected officials approved laws which interfered with a specific religious practice, they had to sustain the burden of justifying their action by identifying a compelling government reason or interest for doing so. They also had to demonstrate that they had interfered with the religious practice by the least restrictive means possible. The compelling governmental interest test provided an essential protection for the free exercise of religion. Such a protection is vital. There is nothing more private or personal than the relationship of an individual to his or her God. There is nothing more sacred to a religious person than the service or worship of God.

With the abandonment of the “compelling governmental interest” test in the case of Employment v. Smith, the Supreme Court has permitted any level of government to interfere with an individual’s religious practice or worship so long as it does so by a law of general applicability that is not seen as overtly targeting a specific religion.

This allows government a greatly increased latitude to restrict the free exercise of religion.

If past is prologue, the forces of local, state, and federal governmental power, now freed from the compelling governmental interest test, will increasingly interfere with the free exercise of religion. We fear that the end result will be a serious diminution of the religious freedom guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

You will hear from others today whose religious practices have already fallen victim to government interference under the Supreme Court’s new standard. They will demonstrate the detrimental effects of the Smith decision in a manner more powerful than I could. I wish to point out, however, that most of the court cases involving government interference with religious liberty involve religious practices that appear out of the ordinary to many. By their nature, elected officials are unlikely to pass ordinances, statutes, or laws that interfere with large mainstream religions whose adherents possess significant political power at the ballot box. But political power or impact must not be the measure of which religious practices can be forbidden by law.

The Bill of Rights protects principles, not constituencies. The worshippers who need its protections are the oppressed minorities, not the influential constituent elements of the majority. As a Latter-day Saint, I have a feeling for that principle. Although my church is now among the five largest churches in America, we were once an obscure and unpopular group whose members repeatedly fell victim to officially sanctioned persecution because of their religious beliefs and practices. We have special reason to call for Congress and the courts to reaffirm the principle that religious freedom must not be infringed unless this is clearly required by a “compelling governmental interest.”

When the Supreme Court determines that a right is guaranteed by the Constitution, it has routinely imposed the compelling governmental interest test to prevent undue official infringement of that right. It is nothing short of outrageous that the Supreme Court continues to apply this protection to words that cannot be found within the Constitution, such as the “right to privacy,” and yet has removed this protective standard from application to the express provision in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights that guarantees the free exercise of religion. The Constitution’s two express provisions on religion suggest that protection of religious freedom was to have a preferred position, but the Smith case has now consigned it to an inferior one. That mistake must be remedied, and H.R. 2797 is appropriate for that purpose.

Conclusion

Mr. Chairman, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints commends the sponsors of H.R. 2797, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, for their recognition of the importance of the free exercise of religion to the freedom and well-being of our pluralistic society. Although we would prefer that the Supreme Court reverse the Smith case and restore the full constitutional dimensions of the First Amendment protection of freedom of religion, we believe that this statutory restoration of the “compelling governmental interest” standard is both a legitimate and a necessary response by the legislative branch to the degradation of religious freedom resulting from the Smith case. For Mormons, this legislation implements in federal law a vital principle of general application embodied in our church’s eleventh article of faith, written in 1842:

“We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.”

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This is the continuation of an article that ran in Meridian called “The Role of Religion in the Founding Father’s Thinking.” To read the other one, click here.

When Thomas Jefferson was serving in the Virginia legislature, he introduced a bill to have a day of fasting and prayer; but when he became President, Jefferson said there was no authority in the federal government to proclaim religious holidays. In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association dated January 1, 1802, he explained his position and said the Constitution had created “a wall of separation between Church and State.”

In recent years the Supreme Court has used this metaphor as an excuse for meddling in the religious issues arising within the various states. As we shall see later, it has not only presumed to take jurisdiction in these disputes, but has actually forced the states to take the same hands-off position toward religious matters, even though this restriction originally applied only to the federal government. This obvious distortion of the original intent of Jefferson (when he used the metaphor of a “wall” separating church and state) becomes entirely apparent when the statements and actions of Jefferson are examined in their historical context.

It will be recalled that Jefferson and Madison were anxious that the states intervene in religious matters until there was equality among all religions and that all churches or religions assigned preferential treatment should be disestablished from such preferment. They further joined with the other Founders in expressing an anxiety that all religions be encouraged in order to promote the moral fiber and religious

tone of the people. This, of course, would be impossible if there were an impenetrable “wall” between church and state on the state level. Jefferson’s “wall” was obviously intended only for the federal government, and the Supreme Court application of this metaphor to the states has come under severe criticism.

Religious Problems Must Be Solved Within the Various States

In Thomas Jefferson’s second inaugural address, he virtually signaled the states to press forward in settling their religious issues, since it was within their jurisdiction and not that of the federal government:

“In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken, on no occasion, to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.”

Jefferson, along with the other Founders, believed that it was within the power of the various states to eliminate those inequities which existed between the various faiths and then pursue a policy of encouraging religious institutions of all kinds, because it was in the public interest to use their influence to provide the moral stability needed for “good government and the happiness of mankind.”

Jefferson’s resolution for disestablishing the Church of England in Virginia was not to set up a wall between the state and the church, but simply, as he explained it, for the purpose of “taking away the privilege and preeminence of one religious sect over another, and thereby [establishing] … equal … rights among all.”

Affirmative Programs to Encourage All Religions on the State Level

In view of the extremely inflexible and rigid position which the U.S. Supreme Court has taken in recent years concerning the raising up of a “wall” between state government and religion, it is remarkable how radically different the Founders’ feelings about such matters were.

Take, for example, the Founders’ approval of religious meetings in tax-supported public buildings. The Founders had no objection to using public buildings for religious purposes; that was even to be encouraged. The only question was whether or not the facilities could be made available equally to all denominations desiring them. Notice how Jefferson reflected his deep satisfaction in the way the churches were using the local courthouse in Charlottesville, near Jefferson’s home:

“In our village of Charlottesville, there is a good degree of religion, with a small spice only of fanaticism. We have four sects, but without either church or meeting-house. The court-house is the common temple, one Sunday in the month to each. Here, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist, meet together, join in hymning their Maker, listen with attention and devotion to each others’ preachers, and all mix in society with perfect harmony.”

One cannot help asking the modern Supreme Court: Where is the wall of separation between church and state when the courthouse is approved for the common temple of all the religious sects of a village?

Of course, Jefferson would be the first to require some other arrangement if all of the churches could not be accommodated equally, but so long as they were operating equally and harmoniously together, it was looked upon as a commendable situation. The fact that they were utilizing a tax-supported public building was not even made an issue.

Jefferson Proposes Accommodations for Religious Instructions at a State School

Not only did the Congress of the Founders’ day provide in the Northwest Ordinance that the basic tenets of religion and the fundamentals of morality should be taught in the public schools, but Jefferson proposed that the University of Virginia extend its facilities to the various denominations so that each student could worship and study in the church of his choice. Jefferson wrote:

“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed [by eliminating religious instruction] their only firm basis — a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are … the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?”

To encourage religious studies by college students of different faiths, Jefferson proposed the following:

1. The responsibility for teaching “the proofs of the being of a God, the creator, preserver, and supreme ruler of the universe, the author of all the relations of morality, and of the laws and obligations these infer, will be within the province of the professor of ethics.”

2. If the university faculty will also teach “the developments of these moral obligations, of those in which all sects agree, [together with] a knowledge of the languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, a basis will be formed common to all sects.”

3. Encourage “the different religious sections to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets, on the confines [campus] of the university, so near … that their students may attend the lectures there, and have the free use of our library, and every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other.”

4. Enable “students of the University to attend religious exercises with the professor of their particular sect, either in the rooms of the buildings still to be erected [by each denomination on campus] or … in the lecturing room of such professor.”

5. Urge students to participate in regular religious exercises but do so without conflicting with the established schedule of the university. Said he: “Should the religious sects of this State, or any of them, according to the invitation held out to them, establish within or adjacent to, the precincts of the University, schools for instruction in the religion of their sect, the students of the University will be free, and expected to attend religious worship at the establishment of their respective sects … in time to meet their school in the University at its stated hour.”

Summary of Jefferson’s Views

From these various documented sources it is apparent that Thomas Jefferson had a number of clearly defined views which he hoped would become the traditional American life-style with reference to religion and the Constitution. Perhaps these views might be summarized as follows:

1. The First Amendment prohibits the federal government from intermeddling in religious matters in any way. It is not to take any positive action which would tend to create or favor some “establishment of religion,” nor is it to interfere or prohibit the free exercise of any religion.

2. The individual state, however, has the responsibility to see that laws and conditions are such that all religious denominations or sects receive equal treatment.

3. There should be a regularly established policy of teaching the fundamentals of religion and morality in the public schools.

4. In addition, there should be an opportunity, on the university level at least, for each denomination to be invited to build facilities on or adjacent to the campus where the students of that particular denomination could be expected to attend regular worship services and receive instructions in their particular faith.

5. Professors might also hold special services or classes of religious instruction in the rooms assigned to them at the university in order to accommodate the needs of the students belonging to their particular faith.

6. Students studying for the ministry at nearby seminaries should be allowed to have full access to the resources of the university library.

7. However, in spite of all of these efforts to encourage religion indirectly, there must be no use of tax funds to subsidize any religion directly.

Jefferson Sees Great Advantages in Following These Guidelines

By leaving it exclusively to the states to work out the equal encouragement of all religions, at the same time giving them no direct subsidy, Jefferson felt the goals of the Founders would be achieved. He felt there was a need to fill “the chasm” of religious ignorance which constituted a Inability to society and at the same time leave “inviolate the constitutional freedom of religion, the most unalienable and sacred of all human rights.”

Jefferson, like other leaders among the Founders, seemed anxious to not only encourage all religious faiths on a basis of equality, but also to have them develop a spirit of toleration for each other. In referring to the university campus and its immediate environs, where all faiths would be invited to provide facilities, Jefferson wrote:

“By bringing the sects together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall soften their aspirates, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason and morality.”

How the Courts Began Building a Wall Between Religion and the State

It is a well-known principle of substantive law that the Constitution and the law should be interpreted very strictly according to the original intent of those who created it. As Chief Justice Roger B. Taney stated in Dred Scott v. Sanford, “It [the Constitution] speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of the framers.”

In the case of Barron v. Baltimore, Chief Justice Marshall affirmed that the Bill of Rights in the Constitution was a series of prohibitions against the federal government to prevent it from encroaching on the states.

Applying this to worship, the court’s decision meant that there was a “wall” between the federal government and any “establishment of religion,” just as Jefferson had said. However, in the case of Gitlow v. New York, the Supreme Court used certain provisions in the federal Bill of Rights and applied them to the states. The court justified this action on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that “no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The opponents of traditional theistic religion and morality saw the Gitlow case as an opportunity to invoke the power of the federal courts to build a wall between each of the states and any form of religious encouragement, even though it was provided indirectly. In other words, they would reverse the Founders’ original policy.

The case of Cantwell v. Connecticut  was the first ruling of the Supreme Court in which the “Gitlow doctrine” was applied to religious liberty, and Everson v. Board of Education was the first time the Supreme Court applied the “due process” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to make the federal wall of separation apply to religious matters among the individual states.

What this amounted to was the actual breaking down of the federal wall set up by the First Amendment so that the Supreme Court actually usurped jurisdiction over religious matters in the states and began dictating what the states could or could not do with reference to religious questions. Without a doubt, there has been a severe wrenching of the Constitution from its original First Amendment moorings ever since this new trend began.

The Supreme Court Prohibits Teaching Religion in Schools

It is interesting that in the debates over ratification Madison stated the position of the Founders when he said: “There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation.” Nevertheless, in McCollum v. Board of Education, 48 the Supreme Court intervened in a religious question. It used the Gitlow

doctrine to tell a state board of education that it would not allow children, even with their parents’ consent, to take religion classes in school. The students had been authorized by the board of education to sign up for these classes, which were being taught by the representatives of their own particular faith. They then attended these classes as part of their regular studies, just as Jefferson had recommended for the University of Virginia. The court ignored the fact that there was equality of opportunity for any of the denominations to provide such classes and used the “wall” doctrine to outlaw use of tax supported facilities for the teaching of religion by any denomination. There was a strong dissent by Justice Stanley F. Reed.

The Supreme Court Approves “Released Time” for Religious Education

It is of further interest that the Supreme Court took its newly acquired jurisdiction over religious questions in state schools to announce in Zorach v. Clauson that it was very solicitous of religion and would approve classes in religion during the regular school day, providing the classes were held separate from any tax-supported property. Justice William O. Douglas wrote the opinion from the following frame of reference:

“We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. We guarantee the freedom to worship as one chooses. We make room for a wide variety of beliefs and creeds as the spiritual needs of man deem necessary. We sponsor an attitude on the part of government that shows no partiality to any one group and that lets each flourish according to the zeal of its adherents and the appeal of its dogma.”

Justice Douglas went even further to state, “We find no constitutional requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and to throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective scope of religious influence.”

The Cultural Vacuum Created by the Court: So-Called “Neutrality”

However, in the case of Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court made it clear that neither the federal government nor a state government could encourage religion in any way. Justice Hugo L. Black spoke for the court and declared in his opinion, “Neither a State nor the Federal government … can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.”

The Founders would have heartily endorsed Justice Black’s “no preference” doctrine, but they would, no doubt, have objected vigorously to outlawing indirect aid for, and encouragement to, “all religions.” In the final analysis, it was “all religions” the Founders had said they were relying upon to undergird society with those moral teachings which are “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.”

No doubt they would have further objected to the court’s presumptive usurpation in taking jurisdiction over a religious question which had been specifically reserved, by the First and Tenth Amendments, to the states themselves.

The Founders seemed fully aware that failure to encourage “all religions” in their important role of teaching fundamental morality would leave a void or cultural vacuum in their formula for a great new civilization of freedom and prosperity. It seems that all empirical evidence of history and human experience sustains their position. Then why did the court take the position it did?

All of the cases from then until now suggest that the court considered its position of “neutrality” more fair and more correct in administering true justice. What some legal scholars are beginning to point out, however, is that the position of so-called neutrality has not achieved what the court said it intended. It has indeed given “secularism,” or the emphasis of nonspiritual and nonmoral principles, the clear advantage of a virtual monopoly in the arena of public education and the administration of public institutions.

The Supreme Court Outlaws Prescribed Prayers in Schools

In the case of Engel v. Vitale, the issue was that the New York regents had prepared a nondenominational prayer for use in the public schools. The New York Court of Appeals upheld the prayer, but the Supreme Court once more intermeddled in a religious question of a state by ruling that a nondenominational prayer prescribed by the officials of the state was “establishing” a religion.

However, contrary to popular belief, the court did not say that prayers were unlawful, providing they were voluntary and not prescribed or set by the state. Nevertheless, this case gave the advocates of secularism an excuse to push through rulings in many states that prayer would not be allowed in the schools.

The Supreme Court Outlaws the Lord’s Prayer and Bible Reading in the Public Schools

In Abington School District v. Schempp, the Supreme Court ruled that opening exercises at the high school involving the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, as well as reading Bible verses, were unconstitutional. The court rejected the proposition that the opening exercises had a secular purpose, namely, the “promotion of moral values, the contradiction to the materialistic trends of our times, the perpetuation of our institutions and the teachings of literature.”

It was pointed out to the court that “unless these religious exercises are permitted, a ‘religion of secularism’ is established in the schools,” but the Court rejected this argument.

At this point it appears that for all intents and purposes the design of the founding Fathers to have the public schools teach the fundamental principles of religion and morality is dead.

Need for an Amendment

The intent of the Founding Fathers (and the desires of the vast majority of American parents) to have these ideals taught in the schools will probably never be restored without a constitutional amendment, which must further define the right of the states to have exclusive jurisdiction over the determination of religious questions. At the same time it would undoubtedly be the desire of the overwhelming majority of Americans that the states be required to give equal encouragement to all religions on a non-preference basis.

Daniel Webster Describes the Founders’ Traditional Goal

In our own day of accelerating rates of crimes of violence, narcotics addiction, billion-dollar pornography sales, hedonistic sexual aberrations, high divorce rates, and deteriorating family life, the American people might well recall the stirring words of Daniel Webster, which he spoke to the New York Historical Society, February 22, 1852:

“Unborn ages and visions of glory crowd upon my soul, the realization of all which, however, is in the hands and good pleasure of Almighty God; but, under his divine blessing, it will be dependent on the character and virtues of ourselves and of our posterity…. If we and they shall live always in the fear of God, and shall respect his commandments … we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country…. It will have no decline and fall. It will go on prospering…. But if we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us, that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity. Should that catastrophe happen, let it have no history! Let the horrible narrative never be written!”

Unfortunately, unless the present generation of American leadership returns to fundamental values, that history is being written right now.

This article is Part 3 of the Education series. Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2.

Introduction

As I proceeded into my series on education, I became more and more aware that an understanding of the seriousness of the situation we find in the public schools today requires two things:

1. An awareness of latter-day prophets’ counsel in regard to how our children should be educated.

2. An awareness of religious underpinnings of America according to the Founding Fathers, and how they depended on the schools to transmit the religious and moral values on which the constitution was built.

Part 1 and 2 traced and summarized the education in Utah–pointing out the distinct counsel received and rejected by our people to base education on gospel truths and not allow the government to take over curriculum. Now, with W. Cleon Skousen’s permission and blessing I am going to intersperse, in two parts, an exquisite essay that appears as a chapter in Skousen’s book The Making of America: the Substance and Meaning of the Constitution.

This essay is titled, in the book Principle 215–From the First Amendment: Congress shall make NO law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Readers are referred to the entire book from which this chapter is drawn for more complete understanding of the constitution and the Founding Fathers. Now, I introduce you to a legend in his own right, W. Cleon Skousen. This text can be found beginning on page 675 of his book:

[Referring to the First Amendment] This provision guaranteed to all Americans the RIGHT to enjoy the free exercise of the religion of their choice without the government giving any preference to one “establishment” or denomination over another.

There was some concern among the Founders lest this prohibition give the impression that the government was hostile to religion. They wanted it clearly understood that the universal, self-evident truths of religion were fundamental to the whole structure of the American system. This is such an important aspect of the nation’s original culture that a comprehensive discussion of religion from the Founders’ perspective might prove helpful.

The Role of Religion in the Founding Fathers’ Constitutional Formula

Americans of the twentieth century often fail to realize the supremeimportance which the Founding Fathers originally attached to the role of religion in the unique experiment which they hoped would emerge as the first civilization of a free people in modern times. Many [page 676] Americans also fail to realize that the Founders felt the role of religion would be as important in our own day as it was in theirs.

In 1787, the very year the Constitution was written by the Convention and approved by Congress, that same body of Congress passed the famous Northwest Ordinance. In it they outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territory. They also enunciated the basic rights of citizens in language similar to that which was later incorporated in the Bill of Rights. And they emphasized the essential need to teach religion and morality in the schools. Here is the way they said it:

“Article 3: Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” 3

Notice that formal education was to include among its teaching responsibilities these three important subjects:

1. Religion, which might be defined as “a fundamental system of beliefs concerning man’s origin and relationship to the Creator, the cosmic universe, and his relationship with his fellowmen.”

2. Morality, which may be described as “a standard of behavior distinguishing right from wrong.”

3. Knowledge, which is “an intellectual awareness and understanding of established facts relating to any field of human experience or inquiry, i.e., history, geography, science, etc.” 4

We also notice that “religion and morality” were not required by the Founders as merely an intellectual exercise, but they positively declared their conviction that these were essential ingredients needed for “good government and the happiness of mankind.”

Washington Describes the Founders’ Position

The position set forth in the Northwest Ordinance was reemphasized by President George Washington in his Farewell Address. He wrote:

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports….

“And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion…. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle.

“It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.” 5

The Teaching of Religion in Schools Restricted to Universal Fundamentals

Having established that “religion” is the foundation of morality and that both are essential to “good government and the happiness of mankind,” the Founders then set about to exclude the creeds and biases or dissensions of individual denominations so as to make the teaching of religion a unifying cultural adhesive rather than a devisive apparatus.

Jefferson wrote a bill for the “Establishing of Elementary Schools” in Virginia and made this point clear by stating:

“No religious reading, instruction or exercise shall be prescribed or practiced inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.” 6

Obviously, under such restrictions the only religious tenets to be taught in public schools would have to be those which were universally accepted by all faiths and completely fundamental to their premises.

Franklin Describes the Five Fundamentals of “All Sound Religions”

Several of the Founders have left us with a description of their basic religious beliefs, and Benjamin Franklin summarized those which he felt were the “fundamental points in all sound religion.” This is the way he said it in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale University:

“Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion.” 7

The “Fundamental Points” to Be Taught in the Schools

The five points of fundamental religious belief which are to be found in all of the principal religions of the world are those expressed or implied in Franklin’s statement:

1. Recognition and worship of a Creator who made all thing

2. That the Creator has revealed a moral code of behavior for happy living which distinguishes right from wrong.

3. That the Creator holds mankind responsible for the way they treat each other

4. That all mankind live beyond this life.

5. That in the next life individuals are judged for their conduct in this one.

All five of these tenets run through practically all of the Founders’ writings. These are the beliefs which the Founders sometimes referred to as the “religion of America,” and they felt these fundamentals were so important in providing “good government and the happiness of mankind” that they wanted them taught in the public schools along with morality and knowledge.

Statements of the Founders Concerning These Principles

Samuel Adams said these basic beliefs which constitute “the religion of America [are] the religion of all mankind.” 8 In other words, these fundamental beliefs belong to all world faiths and could therefore be

taught without being offensive to any “sect or denomination,” as indicated in the Virginia bill establishing elementary schools.

John Adams called these tenets the “general principles” on which the American civilization had been founded. 9

Thomas Jefferson called these basic beliefs the principles “in which God has united us all.” 10

From these statements it is obvious how significantly the Founders looked upon the fundamental precepts of religion and morality as the cornerstones of a free government. This gives additional importance to the warning of Washington, previously mentioned, when he said: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?” 11

Washington issued this solemn warning because in France, shortly before Washington wrote his Farewell Address (1796), the promoters of atheism and amorality had seized control and turned the French Revolution into a shocking bloodbath of wild excesses and violence. Washington never wanted

anything like [page 678] that to happen in the United States. Therefore he had said: “In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness [religion and morality].” 12

Alexis de Tocqueville Discovers the Importance of Religion in America

When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in 1831 he became so impressed with what he saw that he went home and wrote Democracy in America, one of the most definitive studies on the American culture and constitutional system that had been published up to that time. Concerning religion in America, de Tocqueville said:

“On my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things.” 13

He described the situation as follows:

“Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions; … I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion — for who can search the human heart? — but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a c]ass of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.” 14

European Philosophers Turned Out to Be Wrong

In Europe it had been popular to teach that religion and liberty were inimical to each other. De Tocqueville saw the opposite happening in America. He wrote:

“The philosophers of the eighteenth century explained in a very simple manner the gradual decay of religious faith. Religious zeal, said they,must necessarily fail the more generally liberty is established and knowledge diffused. Unfortunately the facts by no means accord with their theory. There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and debasement; while in America, one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world, the people fulfill with fervor all the outward duties of religion.” 15

De Tocqueville Describes the Role of Religion in the Schools

De Tocqueville found that the schools, especially in New England, incorporated the basic tenets of religion right along with history and political science in order to prepare the student for adult life. He wrote:

“In New England every citizen receives the elementary notions of human knowledge; he is taught, moreover, the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of the Constitution. In the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon.” 16

De Tocqueville Describes the Role of the American Clergy

Alexis de Tocqueville saw a unique quality of cohesive strength emanating from the clergy of the various churches in America. After noting that all the clergy seemed anxious to maintain “separation of

church and state,” he nevertheless observed [page 679] that collectively they had a great influence on the morals and customs of public life. This indirectly reflected itself in formulating laws and, ultimately, in fixing the moral and political climate of the American commonwealth. As a result, he wrote:

“This led me to examine more attentively than I had hitherto done the station which the American clergy occupy in political society. I learned with surprise that they filled no public appointments; I did not see one of them in the administration, and they are not even represented in the legislative assemblies.” 17

How different this was from Europe, where the clergy belonged to a national church, subsidized by the government. He wrote:

“The unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a [political] party much more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the Deity than because they are the allies of government.” 18

In America, he noted, the clergy remain politically separated from the government but nevertheless provide a moral stability among the people which permits the government to prosper. In other words, there is a separation of church and state but not a separation of religion and state.

The Clergy Fuel the Flame of Freedom, Stress Morality, and Alert the Citizenry to Dangerous Trends

The role of the churches to perpetuate the social and political culture of the United States provoked the following comment from de Tocqueville:

“The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other….

“I have known of societies formed by Americans to send out ministers of the Gospel into the new Western states, to found schools and church there, lest religion should be allowed to die away in those remote settlements, and the rising states be less fitted to enjoy free institutions than the people from whom they came.” 19

De Tocqueville discovered that while clergymen felt it would be demeaning to their profession to become involved in partisan politics, they nevertheless believed implicitly in their duty to keep religious

principles and moral values flowing out to the people as the best safeguard for America’s freedom and political security.

In one of de Tocqueville’s most frequently quoted passages, he wrote:

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” 20

The Founders’ Campaign for Equality of All Religions

One of the most remarkable efforts of the American Founders was their attempt to do something no other nation had ever successfully achieved –provide legal equality for all religions, both Christian [page 680] and non-Christian.

Jefferson and Madison were undoubtedly the foremost among the Founders in pushing through the first “freedom of religion” statutes in Virginia.

Jefferson sought to disestablish the official church of Virginia in 1776, but this effort was not completely successful until ten years later.

Meanwhile, in 1784, Patrick Henry was so enthusiastic about strengthening the whole spectrum of Christian churches that he introduced a bill “Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion.”

It was the intention of this bill to allow each taxpayer to designate “to what society of Christians” his money would go. The funds collected by this means were to make “provision for a minister or teacher of the Gospel … or the providing of places of divine worship [for that denomination], and to none other use whatever.” 21

Madison immediately reacted with his famous Memorial and Remonstrances, in which he proclaimed with the greatest possible energy the principle that the state government should not prefer one religion over another.

Equality of religions was the desired goal. He wrote:

“Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects? … The bill violates that equality which ought to be the basis of every law.” 22

Why the Founders Wanted the Federal Government Excluded from All Problems Relating to Religion and Churches

The Supreme Court has stated on numerous occasions that, to most people, freedom of religion is the most precious of all the inalienable rights, next to life itself. When the United States was founded, there were many Americans who were not enjoying freedom of religion to the fullest possible extent. At least seven of the states had officially established religions or denominations at the time the Constitution was adopted.

These included:

Connecticut (Congregational Church)

New Hampshire (Protestant faith)

Delaware (Christian faith)

New Jersey (Protestant faith)

Maryland (Christian faith)

South Carolina (Protestant faith)

Massachusetts (Congregational Church) 23

Under these circumstances the Founders felt it would have been catastrophic, and might have precipitated civil strife, if the federal government had tried to establish a national policy on religion or

disestablish the denominations which the states had adopted.

Nevertheless, the Founders who were examining this problem were anxious to eventually see complete freedom of all faiths and an equality of all religions, both Christian and non-Christian. How could this be

accomplished without stirring up civil strife?

Justice Story Describes the Founders’ Solution

In his famous Commentaries on the Constitution, Justice Joseph Story of the Supreme Court pointed out why the Founders, as well as the states themselves, felt the federal government should be absolutely excluded from any authority in the field of settling questions on religion. He explained:

“In some of the states, Episcopalians constituted the predominant sect; in others, Presbyterians; in others, Congregationalists; [page 681] in others, Quakers; and in others again, there was a close numerical rivalry among contending sects. It was impossible that there should not arise perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of ecclesiastical ascendancy, if the national government were left free to create a religious establishment. The only security was in extirpating the power. But this alone would have been an imperfect security, if it had not been followed by a declaration of the right of the free exercise of religion, and a prohibition (as we have seen) of all religious tests. Thus the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusive to the state governments, to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice, and the state constitutions.” 24

This is why the First Amendment of the Constitution provides that “Congress shall make NO law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” (Emphasis added.)

Jefferson and Madison Emphasize the Intent of the Founders

It is clear from the writings of the Founders as well as the Commentaries of Justice Story that the First Amendment was designed to eliminate forever the interference of the federal government in any religious matters within the various states. As Madison stated during the Virginia ratifying convention: “There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation.” 25

Jefferson took an identical position when he wrote the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798: “It is true, as a general principle, … that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press, [is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution…. All lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the states, or to the people.” 26

The Supreme Court, As Well As Congress, Excluded from Jurisdiction over Religion

In the Kentucky Resolutions, Thomas Jefferson also made it clear that the federal judicial system was likewise prohibited from intermeddling with religious matters within the states. He wrote:

“Special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the Constitution, which expressly declares that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, … ‘thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press, insomuch that whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the others; and that libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with heresy and false religion, are withheld from the cognizance of federal tribunals.” 27

Note: the rest of this chapter will be posted here

Footnote references for pp. 675-681 of The Making of America

3. Adler et al., The Annals of America, 3:194-95

4. W. Cleon Skousen, The Five Thousand Year Leap: Twenty-eight Ideas That changed the World (Salt Lake City: Freemen Institute, 1981), p. 76.

5. Adler et al., The Annals of America, 3:612.

6. John William Randolph, ed., Early History of the University of Virginia, as Contained in the Letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph C. Cabell (Richmond: 1856), pp. 96-97.

7. Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 10:84.

8. Wells, The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, 3:23.

9. See Bergh, 13:290-94.

10. Ibid., 14:198.

11. Adler et al., The Annals of America, 3:612

12. Ibid.

13 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1:319.

14. Ibid,. p. 316.

15. Ibid., p. 319.

16. Ibid., p. 327.

17. Ibid., p. 320.

18. Ibid., p. 325; emphasis added.

19. Ibid., p. 317.

20. Quoted in Ezra Taft Benson, God, Family, Country: Our Three Great Loyalties (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1975), p. 360.

21. Quoted in Everson v. Board of Education. 330 U.S. 1, 72, 94.

22. William C. Rives and Philip R. Fendall, eds., Letters and Other Writing of James Madison, 4 vols. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1865), 1:163-64.

23. C.B. Kruse, Jr., “The Historical Meaning and Judicial Construction of the Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment.” Washburn Law Journal 2 (Winter 1962): 65, 94-107.

24. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. 3D ed., 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1858) 2:6666-67; emphasis added.

25. Elliot, 3:330.

26. Adler et al., The Annals of America, 4:63.

27. Ibid; emphasis added.