The Constitution
by
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
Delivered
at the Sunday morning session, April 6, 1957
MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS, contrary to my usual custom and practice. I
intend to read what. 1 have to say today. I assure you I have tried to prepare
it under the influence of our Heavenly Father, and I humbly pray that it will
carry the message which I had hoped for.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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 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."
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.