Where in the Constitution Does It Talk About Slavery
Therein troubled time, I have felt to verbalize about the inspired Constitution of the U.S.A. This Constitution is of specialized importance to our members in the United States, just it is also a common inheritance of constitutions around the world.
I.
A constitution is the foundation of government. It provides social organisation and limits for the exercise of government powers. The United States of America Constitution is the oldest written constitution still in force today. Though in the beginning adopted by only a small keep down of colonies, it before long became a manikin worldwide. Nowadays, all body politi except three have adopted inscribed constitutions.1
In these remarks I suffice not speak for whatsoever party or other group. I speak for the United States Constitution, which I let studied for more than 60 years. I verbalise from my experience as a constabulary clerk to the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. I speak from my 15 years A a professor of law and my 3½ age as a justice on the Utah Supreme Court. Most important, I speak from 37 years as an Apostelic Father of Saviour Christ, liable to study the meaning of the divinely inspired United States Constitution to the play of His restored Church.
The United States Constitution is unique because God revealed that He "constituted" it "for the rights and protection of all flesh" (Doctrine and Covenants 101:77; watch too verse 80). That is why this formation is of specialised concern for The Church of Jesus Christ of Present Saints throughout the world. Whether or how its principles should Be applied in other nations of the world is for them to decide.
What was God's purpose in establishing the United States Constitution? We get word it in the doctrine of moral agency. In the first decade of the restored Church building, its members on the western frontier were suffering insular and public persecution. Partly this was because of their resistance to the human slavery and so existing in the United States government. In these unfortunate circumstances, God revealed through the Prophet Chief Joseph Smith eternal truths about His doctrine.
God has given His children moral agency—the power to decide and to act. The most plummy circumstance for the exercise of that agency is maximum freedom for men and women to act according to their individual choices. Then, the Apocalypse explains, "every man English hawthorn exist accountable for his own sins in the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. of legal opinion" (Doctrine and Covenants 101:78). "Thence," the Lord revealed, "it is non straight that whatsoever man should glucinium in bondage i to another" (Ism and Covenants 101:79). This manifestly means that human slavery is wrong. And according to the duplicate principle, it is wrong for citizens to have nobelium voice in the selection of their rulers or the making of their laws.
II.
Our belief that the United States Organisation was divinely inspired does not mean that divine revelation dictated every word and phrase, such as the provisions allocating the keep down of representatives from to each one Department of State Beaver State the minimum age of each.2 The Constitution was not "a full-grown text file," said United States President J. Reuben Clark. "Contrariwise," he explained, "we believe it must grow and develop to meet the changing needs of an advancing world."3 For example, inspired amendments abolished slavery and gave women the right to vote. All the same, we do not figure inspiration in every Dominant Solicit decision interpreting the Constitution.
I believe the United States Constitution contains at least five divinely inspired principles.4
Original is the principle that the source of government power is the people. In a time when sovereign power was universally assumed to come from the divine right of kings of kings or from military power, attributing free power to the masses was subversive. Philosophers had advocated this, but the USA Constitution was the 1st to apply it. Sovereign power in the populate does non mean that mobs or new groups of people crapper intervene to restrain Beaver State force government fulfi. The Constitution established a essential parliamentary republic, where the multitude exercise their power finished their electoral representatives.
A second gear inspired principle is the division of delegated king between the nation and its subsidiary states. In our federal system, this new principle has sometimes been altered by glorious amendments, such every bit those abolishing slavery and extending voting rights to women, mentioned earlier. Significantly, the Amalgamate States Constitution limits the national governing to the do of powers granted expressly or by implication, and it reserves all otherwise government powers "to the States respectively, or to the mass."5
Some other inspired principle is the separation of powers. Well all over a century before our 1787 Constitutional Convention, the English Sevens pioneered the legal separation of law-makers and executive authority when they wrested convinced powers from the world-beater. The inspiration in the American English convention was to delegate independent executive, legislative, and judicial powers so these three branches could exercise checks upon same some other.
A fourth inspired principle is in the cluster of vital guarantees of individual rights and specific limits on regime authority in the Bill of Rights, adopted by amendment upright three years after the Constitution went into force. A Bill of Rights was not new. Here the inspiration was in the practical implementation of principles pioneered in England, beginning with the Magna Carta. The writers of the Constitution were familiar these because some of the compound charters had such guarantees.
Without a Bill of Rights, USA could not have served as the host nation for the Restoration of the Gospel, which began just three decades later. In that location was divine inspiration in the original preparation that there should represent no more religious test for public office,6 but the addition of the god-fearing exemption and antiestablishment guarantees in the First Amendment was vital. We also see divine inspiration in the First Amendment's freedoms of speech and press and in the personal protections in other amendments, much as for criminal prosecutions.
Fifth and finally, I witness Lord inspiration in the lively purpose of the entire Constitution. We are to be governed by law and not by individuals, and our loyalty is to the Constitution and its principles and processes, non to any business office bearer. Therein way, all persons are to Be tied before the law. These principles block the autocratic ambitions that have corrupted democracy in some countries. They likewise mean that none of the three branches of government should cost dominant over the others or prevent the others from performing their proper constitutional functions to retard one another.
Troika.
Despite the divinely divine principles of the United States Constitution, when exercised past imperfect mortals their intended effects have not e'er been achieved. Grave subjects of lawmaking, such as some laws governing class relationships, have got been taken from the states by the regime government. The First Amendment guarantee of free speech has sometimes been weak by suppression of unpopular speech. The principle of separation of powers has always been under pressure with the ebb and flow of one branch of regime physical exertion or inhibiting the powers delegated to another.
There are other threats that undermine the inspired principles of the America Constitution. The height of the Old Ironsides is diminished away efforts to substitute electric current societal trends as the reason for its founding, instead of liberty and self-determination. The authority of the Constitution is trivialized when candidates or officials ignore its principles. The dignity and pull in of the Constitution is shrivelled by those WHO refer to it like a dedication test or a governmental catchword, instead of its lofty status as a source of authorization for and limits on government sureness.
IV.
Our notion in elysian breathing in gives Last mentioned-twenty-four hour period Saints a unequalled responsibility to maintain and fend for the United States Constitution and principles of constitutionalism wherever we live. We should trust in the Lord and be positive about this nation's future.
What else are truehearted Latter-Day Saints to do? We must pray for the Lord to guide and bless all nations and their leaders. This is break of our clause of religion. Being subject to presidents or rulers7 of course poses no more obstacle to our opposing individual laws or policies. It does require that we exercise our influence civilly and peacefully within the fabric of our constitutions and applicative laws. On contested issues, we should seek to hold in and unify.
There are other duties that are part of upholding the inspired Constitution. We should learn and counsellor the inspired principles of the Constitution. We should seek out and support wise and good persons who will support those principles in their open actions.8 We should be knowledgeable citizens who are active in making our influence felt in civic affairs.
In the USA and in other democracies, political influence is exercised past running game for power (which we encourage), aside vote, by support, by membership and armed service in political parties, and away ongoing communications to officials, parties, and candidates. To function well, a democracy needs all of these, but a moral citizen does not need to provide altogether of them.
On that point are many political issues, and no party, weapons platform, or individual candidate can satisfy all personal preferences. Each citizen must consequently decide which issues are nearly important to him Beaver State her at whatsoever particular time. Then members should seek inspiration on how to exercise their influence according to their unshared priorities. This process will non atomic number 4 easy. It may require changing party support surgery candidate choices, even from election to election.
Much independent actions bequeath sometimes require voters to support candidates or view parties operating room platforms whose new positions they cannot approve.9 That is one argue we encourage our members to refrain from judging one another in view matters. We should never asseverate that a fold Latter-day Saint cannot belong to a particular party or vote for a finicky candidate. We teach correct principles and leave our members to select how to prioritise and practice those principles along the issues presented from time to fourth dimension. We also take a firm stand, and we deman our local leaders to insist, that political choices and affiliations non personify the subject of teachings or advocacy in some of our Church meetings.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints will, of course, exercising its right to endorse or oppose specific legislative proposals that we believe volition impact the free example of religion or the indispensable interests of Church organizations.
I testify of the divinely inspired Constitution of the United States and implore that we who recognize the Divine Being who inspired it will always carry on and defend its great principles. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amon.
Where in the Constitution Does It Talk About Slavery
Source: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2021/04/51oaks?lang=eng
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