I have repeatedly found that the best scholarship and writing concerning the Constitution comes from the good folks at the Claremont Institute.

Thomas G. West and Douglas A. Jeffrey, both senior fellows at the Claremont Institute, have published a booklet entitled “The Rise and Fall of Constitutional Government in America”, which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to better understand the Constitution and the dangers presented by our modern abandonment of its principles.

It is available as a free PDF document here:

The Rise and Fall of Constitutional Government in America: A Guide to Understanding the Principles of the American Founding (PDF)

“No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles”

- Virginia Bill of Rights, June 12, 1776

The Constitution does not contain its own explanation. It says how the government should function, but it does not explain why it should function that way. To understand the Constitution we have to look at the principles invoked in the Declaration of Independence and the other writings of the founders.

West and Jeffrey manage to give an excellent explanation in just over 50 pages that is easily accessible to most adults and teens, and a great resource for teachers and parents looking for a guide to teaching children about our Constitutional Republic.

Read it today and share it with your friends and family!

My father said that he believed that the white and yellow stuffs were frankincense and myrrh that some friends had brought them back from the Middle East.   The coin I vaguely remembered from a family vacation we had taken many years before.  It was a road trip from Utah to New York and Washington D. C. and back, stopping along the way to visit sites from U. S. and LDS Church history.

The city of Nauvoo, Illinois, was founded by the prophet Joseph Smith and the Mormons in 1839 after they had been driven out of the state of Missouri.  Between 1839 and 1846 when it was finally abandoned by most of the Latter-day Saints, it had grown to be the second largest city in the state next to Chicago.

While we were visiting Nauvoo those many years ago, we had gone over to edge of the town to the banks of the Mississippi river.  I remembered that my father had spotted a coin half-buried in the mud of the river bank.  He picked it up and washed it off.  It looked old, and he wondered if might be old enough to have been from the time the Saints lived there.

Somehow, after the road trip and many years, the coin had been mostly forgotten until I found it in the little metal box.

Though the coin is very worn, especially on the obverse side, after doing a little research we are fairly certain that it is a Large One Cent Liberty coin, featuring the Coronet Head Braided Hair design that was minted in the United States from 1839 to 1857, right during the Nauvoo period until about 10 years after the Mormons left for what would eventually become Utah.

This particular coin is probably too worn to be worth very much compared to others of the same type and date.  Who knows if it had actually been used by someone in Nauvoo or if it had been carried by the water from elsewhere upriver.  But the fact that it was found by my own father on the banks of the Mississippi in Nauvoo and dates to the very era when Joseph Smith and the LDS Church were there, makes it a valuable treasure for us that connects us to our history and heritage.

Looking at the coin I can imagine the prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum crouching in the darkness in the mud of that very river bank, before climbing into a small boat with Porter Rockwell who would row them to the opposite side so they could escape to the west, only to return the next day at the insistence of family and friends and be murdered days later by a mob of conspiring, wicked men.

You never know what you’ll find in your parents’ stuff, or in the mud!

According to tradition the sermon was given aboard the Pilgrim ship Arbella before landing at what would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but recent scholarship suggests that it was more likely given in England before the pilgrims set sail.

The image of the City on a Hill that Winthrop envisioned has become a common American theme. U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously cited Winthrop’s imagery in his 1988 farewell address, and it is Reagan’s reformulation that is most often recognized:

The past few days when I’ve been at that window upstairs, I’ve thought a bit of the “shining city upon a hill.” The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined…. I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still.

Reagan’s formulation of the city on a hill as an example and guide to all nations is, in my experience, what most people now associate with the phrase “city on a hill.”

I admire President Reagan a great deal. But reading Winthrop’s original sermon, it is clear to me that Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill was different from that of Winthrop. Winthrop never described a “Shining” city on a hill at all. The word shining does not occur in the text.

“Shining” in Reagan’s speech was likely adapted from the 14th verse of Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus declares, “Ye are the light of the word. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.”

But Winthrop’s focus was on the fact that a city on a hill cannot be hidden. Winthrop says:

For wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are uppon us. Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God in this worke wee haue undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. Wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of God, and all professors for God’s sake. Wee shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into curses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither wee are a goeing.

For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Winthrop’s message is well worth considering. Because of the nature of their endeavor and the claims that they made to be God’s people, the Puritan Pilgrims were as a city on a hill. As Jesus mentioned, and Winthrop emphasized, such a city cannot be hidden from the eyes of the world. Their actions would be subject to elevated scrutiny.

Like the Puritans, as we Latter-day Saint’s strive to establish Zion, the nature of our claims to be the Restoration of God’s church on the Earth make us a city on a hill and, for good or for ill, all the eyes of the world are upon us. Mistakes easily forgiven in those of less lofty endeavors will be held against us and, as Winthrop warned, “open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God.” We should have ever present in our minds that grave fact and we should be ever circumspect in our words and our actions.

It is a shame that our culture concentrates on the story of the Pilgrim’s thanksgiving, when the holiday itself is also rooted firmly in the solemnity, terror, and self-affliction of civil war.

Thanksgiving should epitomize the virtue of being grateful and recognizing the merciful hand of God in our lives, especially amid the worst turmoil and affliction.

Lincoln delcared Thanksgiving a day of “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience” and “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

I recommend reading the full text of Lincoln’s proclamation with your family. You can find it in my Thanksgiving post from last year:

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

May God bless all of you this Thanksgiving!

When those with more liberal views than I say that the nation as the founders established it was not a Christian Nation, they are superficially correct. However, the nation was arguably founded explicitly as a Theistic Nation, a fact which they often ignore or deny. And Christianity had an undeniable influence on the formation of the United States and its government even if it was not explicitly Christian. While there was to be no established religious sect or creed, the government and nation were expected to officially recognize the authority of a vague, generic Supreme Creator as the source and judge of their laws and actions and to recognize the necessity of His approbation of their collective actions.

To prove that the government was intended to be Theistic we can look at the philosophy of the founding documents and the national symbols and heraldry created by the founders.

The philosophy of the Declaration of Independence was that the equity of the laws and actions of any nation could be judged by the people by comparing them to a Natural Law of Justice and Morality established by Nature’s God. It was by appealing those higher laws and the Supreme Being that the colonists justified their rebellion against Britain and the formation of a new government.

While the Constitution itself never appeals to God explicitly, the form of government it establishes was designed to create a “more perfect union” and “establish justice.” In other words, it assumes the same philosophy as the Declaration of Independence because the founders believed that the way to measure whether the new union is “more perfect” than the previous union and that the laws are more just than before was by comparing them to the higher standard cited by the Declaration: the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God. The checks and balances of the Constitution are all made in an implicit attempt to create a government that adheres more closely to ideals established by a Superior Power. The Constitution is the practical implementation of the philosophy, or in other words an incarnation of the spirit, of the Declaration of Independence.

In this way, the founding documents are inherently Theistic even though they are not explicitly Christian.

Additionally, the national symbology of the United States makes this marriage of Theism and the U.S. government explicit in a way that is hard to deny.

In one of its first post-declaration actions on July 4th 1776, the Continental Congress formed a committee to create a Seal for the new nation. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were assigned to the first committee charged with designing the Great Seal.

Benjamin Franklin proposed an image of “Moses standing on the Shore, and extending his Hand over the Sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open Chariot, a Crown on his Head and a Sword in his Hand. Rays from a Pillar of Fire in the Clouds reaching to Moses, to express that he acts by Command of the Deity.” And he proposed the motto: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”

Thomas Jefferson proposed a depiction of the children of Israel guided through the wilderness by a daytime cloud and a nighttime pillar of fire.

Several committees later in 1782 the final Great Seal was adopted. It symbolically expressed these same Theistic attitudes about the relation between God and Government, even though in the end they did not use Franklin or Jefferson’s specific symbols. The official blazon of the Great Seal, as adopted by the very first U.S. Congress explains that: “The pyramid signifies Strength and Duration: The Eye over it & the Motto allude to the many signal interpositions of Providence in favour of the American cause.” The motto referred to appears in the seal as “Annuit Cœptis” and means literally “he nods in assent to the things that have been started.” It is officially interpreted to mean “He (God) has favored our undertakings.”

The fact that the pyramid representing our nation is unfinished but is being built in the mirror image of the triangle containing the eye of providence above it can be interpreted to represent that our nation is continually built in the image of an ideal established by God—an work that is unfinished yet.

So the official symbol and heraldry of the U.S., as established by the founders themselves, explicitly invokes God in our political institutions. The seal has appeared on every official action by the government since that time, though it is often the obverse side and not the reverse where the pyramid and motto are shown. Everyone has seen it on the one-dollar bill. It proclaims that God should “nod in assent” to what we undertake as a nation. “In God We Trust” may have been added much later, but it was clearly consistent with the original founding notions of the nation’s symbols and motto.

Those who, contrary to these facts, proclaim that the founding was essentially atheistic, often point to the few iconoclastic but highly influential founders like Washington, Franklin, Madison, Adams, and Jefferson. They describe them as Deists. However, while Jefferson denied that Jesus was the son of God, he also declared that the fundamental ethical teachings of Jesus were sublime and the best of moral philosophy. In an ethical sense at least he, Franklin, Washington, and Madison were “Christians.” And, as their proposals for the Great Seal demonstrate, they believed in a God who worked within history through the imposition of his will in the affairs of mankind, and that his aide and favor could be acquired through supplication—beliefs which are foreign to what we mean modernly when we speak of “Deism” and contrary to the notions of those who preach an atheistic founding.

Additionally, if we consider all of those who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, attended the Constitutional Convention, signed the Constitution, or served in the First Federal Congress that adopted the Bill of Rights and established the direction of the country, there were about 200 individuals involved in the founding, the vast majority of whom were adherents of a Christian sect—predominantly Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist. At very least one must recognize a reflection of the democratic processes of Congregationalist parishes in the Democratic forms of the government that was formed.

The negative aspects of historical Christianity clearly also played a role, as the founders sought to avoid the folly of the bloody sectarian violence that had plagued Europe, however, as I hope is evident from the Great Seal, their goal was anti-sectarian, not anti-Theism.

Even among the pilgrims, Roger Williams’ argument for religious tolerance, upon which he founded Providence, Rhode Island with separation of Church and State, was based in ideals explicitly derived from Christianity and the teachings of Jesus (as Williams, who was a Christian theologian, understood them). Religious Tolerance and the Separation of Church and State themselves were originally rooted in and justified by Christian thought and teaching, as was the freedom of the press (see John Milton’s Areopagitica).

Obviously there were other philosophical influences on the founders in addition to Christianity, but most of those philosophies had been filtered through the lens of Christianity simply because of the cultural environment in which the founding occurred.

So the U.S. was intended by its founders to be an explicitly Theistic Nation with ideals derived from at least the ethical teachings of Christianity.

I do not want to make our nation more explicitly “Christian.” As a Latter-day Saint, I do not want other Christians to enforce their particular sectarian views upon me. I want the nation to tolerate a variety of views, including atheism. But, I am strongly opposed to those who would remove the explicit Theism of the founding completely from our institutions. In my view, the Theism of the founding is essential to, and inextricable from the form of government we enjoy and if we attempt to excise it from the government we will leave our institutions without a foundation and they will eventually crumble.

If our rights come from man and not from the Creator, then they can be revoked by man. But our rights don’t come from men. They come from God. That is why most modern totalitarian endeavors so often seek to eliminate religion. Because as long as the people believe that there is a higher authority to which they can appeal over their political rulers, as did our nation’s founders, totalitarian systems are in the long run doomed. If we cease to look to God to “nod in assent to our undertakings” we will lose out freedoms and rights because it is he who has endowed us with them.

One can disagree that Theism is essential to our government, but one should not pretend that such views are historical or consistent with those of the founders.

Annuit Cœptis.

The Classicist bent of our modern American education system often focuses on the real, but overemphasized contribution of the Greek and Roman civilizations to our modern legal system and government while unduly minimizing or ignoring the contribution from the medieval legal traditions of the Norse and Germanic cultures from which English Common law, and subsequently American law, developed. As a result, a number people have at least a cursory familiarity with the Athenian forum while far fewer are familiar with the Norse Thing or the Anglo-Saxon Folkmoot, or the later British Witenagemot.

The Anglo-Saxon folkmoot, like the Norse Thing, was a governing assembly consisting of the free members of the community or district. The folkmoot protected the people against anarchy and tribal feuding by mediating disputes and grievances according to the Common Law (Old English folcriht, literally “right of the people”) and in theory provided each free man a single vote, though like modern democracies it was often dominated by the more powerful, influential members of the community. Some assemblies had the power to elect chieftains and kings based on who they considered best for the community, regardless of blood relation to any current monarch.

The Folkmoot and Thing are the early precursors to our modern legislative assemblies and trials by jury. Later, the folkmoots developed into hundred courts, borough courts, and shire courts.

Lawsuits were heard before the folkmoot. The procedure was for a number of “oath-helpers” to testify of the innocence of the defendant, who himself made an oath of innocence. The word “Juror” comes from the Latin iurature, which means “swearer” or “oath maker.” The defendant had to secure a certain number of oath-helpers to establish his innocence . The number of oath-helpers was traditionally twelve, a number that has carried through to our modern juries. If he failed to secure enough oath-helpers, the defendant was judged guilty.

So, returning to my original thought, Richard Bushman’s biography shows that, understandably, there was enormous pressure on Joseph Smith to show the Gold Plates, which contained the ancient text that was being translated as The Book of Mormon, to others and prove their existence. Joseph was under strict heavenly command to show them to no one. As the translation of the Book of Mormon neared completion, however, he was permitted to show the plates to a few individuals who are known as the three witnesses and the eight witnesses. It occurred to me that the testimony of Joseph Smith plus those of the three witnesses and then the eight witnesses made a total of twelve testimonies to the real existence of the plates. In a sense Joseph plus the other eleven witnesses filled the ancient role of the twelve Anglo-Saxon oath-helpers needed to establish the fact of their existence. In this way the witnesses of the Book of Mormon fit into a deep rooted cultural tradition that still wields power in our society.

(Unrelated trivia for The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter fans: The Entmoot attended by Merry and Pippin with Treebeard in “The Two Towers” is based on the Anglo-Saxon Folkmoot; the Wizengamot, or high court of wizards of which Albus Dumbledore is the head in the Harry Potter books, is based upon the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot—Old English witan means “wise man”)

This view is rampant among the more radical, liberal or progressive blogs and forums.

I think that a conspiratorial view of current events and of history has a certain natural appeal. It plucks the same psychological strings that make gossip attractive and wide spread.

We find a base, visceral pleasure in wallowing in the dirty secrets, misdeeds, or misfortunes of others (even when the dirt is more perceived than real). Real or imagined, gossip appears to agree with the observable facts and often exhibits a great deal of logical consistency. Gossip carries a great deal of explanatory power and provides a narrative and framework in which an individual’s actions may be interpreted. Conspiracy theories often exhibit these same attributes.

As with gossip, at a very base, primitive level we would rather see conspiracies. And because of this natural appeal, conspiracy theories should be approached with a great deal of skepticism and self doubt.

Of course, the explanatory power and logical consistency of conspiracy theories can be very seductive. I find the following passages from G. K. Chesterton’s book “Orthodoxy,” wherein he describes the logic of insanity, to be a particularly powerful in describing the kind of logic typical of conspiracy theories. Chesterton is anything but terse, and it is difficult to excerpt his writing, so please forgive the length of the quote, but I think it is worth citing at length and your time to read:

Every one who has had the misfortune to talk with people in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that their most sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze. If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humour or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.
…
The madman’s explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness.

If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England that might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ’s.

Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is not so large…. There is such a thing as a narrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now, speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic’s theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way.
…
Such is the madman of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, frequently a successful reasoner. Doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason, and the case against him put logically. But it can be put much more precisely in more general and even aesthetic terms. He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point. He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity.

The similarity between Chesterton’s description of the reasoning of a madman and the logic of conspiracy theories is striking; the horrible clarity of detail Chesterton talks about; a connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze; the often unanswerable, logical completeness.

Of course, those who subscribe to the conspiracy theory often take this logical completeness and the fact that they are at least unanswerable as evidence of the truthfulness of the theory. On the contrary, it could just as easily be the hallmark of insanity.

Liberal Hollywood visions and musical prognostications of a looming Christian theocracy, corporate oligarchy, or suggestions that President Bush orchestrated the September 11th attacks and the war on terror in a plot to set himself up as some kind of Hitler-like dictator clearly fall into this kind of thinking. If you talk to people who believe these theories, you will probably find it difficult to answer their contracted logic, which is often untempered by humor, charity, or common sense.

Of course, conservatives are just as susceptible to the wiles of conspiracy theories as liberals are and have propagated plenty of their own crazy theories over the years.

And to make things more complicated, surely there are individuals and groups that really do conspire by manipulating, murdering, and political machinations to acquire power and money and to fight against that which is good. Conspiracy theories would serve as an excellent distraction for any real conspiracy. Those who might have spent time fighting the conspirators efforts instead waste their energies shadowboxing. And others are numbed by the “boy who cried wolf” effect of the rampant theories and simply dismiss any conspiracy as imaginary.

So what can we do to avoid the pitfalls of conspiracy theories?

I think that the comments of the late physicist, Dr. Richard Feynman, given in a commencement speech at the California Institute of Technology in 1974, are very helpful when trying to guard against conspiratorial thinking. He told the students to cultivate

..a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain the results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell that they have been eliminated…. In summary, the idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.

I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the laymen when you’re talking as a scientist….I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is [more than] not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.

Dr. Feynman’s first principle: that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool, is especially applicable to conspiracy theories. Given the gossip-like attraction of conspiracy theories, we must be careful not to fool ourselves.

These same principles ought to be applied by conspiracy theorists—yet in my experience it is just the contrary. Those who advocate conspiracy theories often show little or no self doubt. The possibility that they might be fooling themselves is excluded from their vocabulary. In fact, conspiracy theorists often exhibit a curious kind of elitism. Their ability to understand the facts and their possession of the knowledge of what is “really happening” seems to make them feel better than other people—who they often seem to view as the “ignorant” masses.

This elitism is evident in the derisive manner in which they usually respond to those who question their theory. Individuals who honestly question the validity of their theories are derided as willfully ignorant, weak minded, unpatriotic, or unwilling to look at the facts, or worse, part of the conspiracy. If you question them they do not allow for the possibility that you might have legitimate concerns—you are automatically inferior.

Ironically, the elitism involved in conspiracy theories is at a certain level not unlike the elitism of the secret societies which the conspiracies discuss. The possession of secret knowledge and membership in a secret society sets you apart and above the ignorant, foolish masses. Likewise, the possession of special knowledge of the existence of a conspiracy and belonging to a select group of “believers” who know what is really going on sets you apart from and above the foolish ignorant masses.

It is valuable to consider how our country might be transformed from a constitutional republic into a dictatorship. Speculative Orwellian or Distopian narratives informed by a circumspect view of history may help us examine the nature of liberty, how it is lost, and how we can protect it. But we must take care. All of us exhibit some degree of the kind of insane, contracted reasoning discussed by Chesterton in the earlier quote or are at times seduced by the gossip like qualities of conspiracy. We need to watch ourselves to make sure that our reason is always tempered by both charity and humor, as well as a dose of good, old, common horse-sense.

Since the release of this letter of counsel to the members, I have heard of several critics of the church, internal and external, who try to discredit the Church’s position against homosexual marriage as hypocritical in light of the Church’s own struggle against the United States government’s prohibition of the former LDS practice of Polygamy in the late 19th century.

These critics try to draw a parallel between the church’s fight to keep the government from prohibiting its religious practice of plural marriage and the modern fight by homosexuals to prevent the government from prohibiting same-sex marriage. “How can the church support government prohibition of same-sex marriage,” they ask, “when the church itself fought to prevent the government from interfering with their right to marriage in the 19th century?”

This criticism reveals a very superficial understanding of history and the church’s 19th century position in regard to congressional proscription of polygamy. Like the common comparison of the homosexual movement to the civil-rights movement, it is an effective rhetorical device with emotional appeal, but has little basis in reality. It is effective because it is superficially compelling and easily expressed in only a few words while an effective refutation of it requires a lengthy explanation.

What follows is a review of the history of the LDS church’s struggle against congressional prohibition of polygamy in the late 19th century that I hope demonstrates that its modern support for congressional prohibition of same-sex marriage is entirely consistent with its history. Some of the information was gleaned from articles I can no longer find. I will post links to them later if I ever find them. This explanation represents my own understanding of the matter and not the official position of the church.

Polygamy did not become illegal on a national level in the United States until Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Law on July 8, 1862, ten years after the practice had become official in the Utah Territory. There had long been state and local laws against bigamy, but the United States had tolerated the polygamy of both Chinese and African/Arabic immigrants before the Morrill Act.

The Morrill act was engineered “to punish and prevent the practice of polygamy in the Territories of the United States.” It annulled all acts passed in the Utah Territory “pertaining to polygamy and spiritual marriage.” The act was, in many ways, exactly what the Saints of the time believed: a legislative attack on a specific religion.

Church President John Taylor justified the Saint’s civil disobedience to the law saying “I have told the people . . . to take care of their liberties, to put their trust in the living God, to obey every constitutional law, and to adhere to all correct principles.” The key phrase in his statement was “obey every constitutional law.” The Saint’s believed that the Morrill Act was an unconstitutional law because it was specifically designed to prohibit the free exercise of their religion, contrary to the first amendment’s prohibition of congress to make such laws.

In 1874 the Church set up court case to challenge the constitutionality of the Morrill Act. Brigham Young’s secretary, George Reynolds, became the defendant. Brigham Young died in August of 1877. The Reynold’s case was appealed up to the Supreme Court. I believe it was the very first case requiring the court to interpret the extent of religious freedom of the first amendment.

Those church members involved in arguing the case before the Supreme Court made a remarkably sophisticated argument concerning religious freedom and the power of congress. The argument appealed to natural law legal philosophy. They recognized, on the one hand, that people could easily claim religious motivation to defy almost any law and make government meaningless. On the other hand, they acknowledged that if there is no religious limit on what the state can criminalize then freedom of religion is an illusion.

They argued that a reading of the constitution that protected only religious “belief” from congressional interference but not religious “action” would permit the government to commit all of the same acts of religious persecution that had previously been committed by governments throughout history and which were the very reason why the founders included the prohibition in the first amendment in the first place. They argued that separating the protection of “belief” from “action” would ultimately allow any belief to be punished on the basis of some act:

“History teaches us that it is not a difficult thing to obtain pretexts for imprisoning and killing people of an unpopular religion. Catholic and Protestant, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Quaker and Baptist, Infidel and Jew, have each in their turn suffered for carrying their opinions into practice.”

As an alternative, the Mormons argued that the issue could be resolved by applying Natural Law principles to the phrase “congress shall make no law…”

Natural Law jurisprudence says that all law is based on a higher, moral law that is virtually universal among mankind and that no law enacted by government, even if enacted properly, can be legally binding if it violates that higher law. Natural Law had a longstanding tradition in the United States system of government. In fact, it was by citing this Natural Law (“the laws of nature and of Nature’s God”) that the United States had justified its rebellion against England and establishment of the new Republic.

Arguing before the Court, the saints invoked the Natural Law distinction between actions that are inherently wrong (malum in se) and wrong only because they are legally prohibited (malum prohibitum).

The Mormons asserted that religious actions that are malum in se could be justifiably prohibited by Congress, but that religious actions that are only malum prohibitum are exempt from legal prohibition. They then attempted to demonstrate that polygamy was merely mala prohibita, an “artificial crime, created by legislative enactment, and involving, when practiced as a religious duty, no moral guilt.”

19th century American Courts looked routinely at the Biblical Decalogue as a standard of discovering Natural Law. The Saints pointed out that polygamy was not prohibited by the 10 commandments the way that adultery and murder were, that several righteous biblical patriarchs practiced polygamy, and that therefore polygamy could not be mala in se. They also invoked the long standing Natural Law tradition of comparative culture, pointing out that polygamy is permitted in many other cultures and legal traditions while murder and theft were not.

In January of 1879 the Supreme Court ruled on the Reynolds case and upheld the constitutionality of the Morrill Act. The decision ignored almost entirely the Natural Law argument put forth by the saints and instead accepted a Positivist view asserting that the “free exercise” clause applied only to religious “belief” but not to religious “action.” Eventually the church officially discontinued the practice of polygamy and today members who enter into polygamous marriages are excommunicated from the church.

Ironically, the Republicans who passed the bill and the court that upheld it justified the abolition of Slavery by appealing to Natural Law Jurisprudence while at the same time rejecting Natural Law Jurisprudence in favor of Positivist Philosophy to abolish Polygamy.

In the modern church, the support of congressional and constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage is entirely consistent with the church’s 19th century position. The church viewed polygamy, when practiced for religious reasons, as merely mala prohibita and therefore claimed that the religious practice of it was protected from congressional proscription by the free exercise clause of the first amendment. Other religious acts however, such as human sacrifice, which were contrary to the natural law and malum in se, could be, and should be prohibited by law and remain consistent with the constitution. Homosexual behavior and marriage are contrary to the higher, natural law and therefore are mallum in se. As such, homosexual marriage and behavior can be, and ought to be prohibited by positive law as well.

Of course, those who advocate same-sex marriage do not believe in natural law and therefore do not feel that it can be a factor in determining what should or should not be legal. That is a different issue. The point is that those critics who point to the church’s history with polygamy to downplay or nullify the church’s modern support of anti-same-sex-marriage legislation as inconsistent and hypocritical are just plain wrong. They may disagree with the church, but their rhetoric against the church in this vein is empty and should be disregarded.

I urge all faithful members of the church to listen to the counsel of our prophet to support measures to prohibit same-sex marriage and encourage our elected representatives to do likewise. At the same time we should have charity for, and extend loving kindness to all those who struggle with same-sex attraction. Despite our strong opposition to legal sanction of their behavior, we should not demonize them . They are children of God and He loves all of us despite our sins.

I have also enjoyed researching the topic of my presentation, an obscure portion of the fascinating history of Chile. For any of you who read Spanish, I am posting a summary of my research. I’m sure that there are grammatical and orthographic problems that I have missed, but deadlines wait for no one!

UPDATE: The presentation went well, despite some silly errors on my part. Also, I have corrected the text below thanks to the helpful suggestions from a friend who reads the blog. Thanks!

Orélie Antoine de Tounens
La historia peculiar de un “Don Quijote” francés en Chile

Los Araucanos

Araucano es la palabra en español por los Mapuche. Los Mapuche (Mapudungun; che, “la gente”,+ mapu, “de la tierra”) son la gente indígena que vive en el centro y sur de Chile y Argentina. Resistieron ser conquistados por el Imperio Inca y después resistían a los Españoles por 300 años! El conflicto entre los Españoles y los Mapuche se llama “La guerra de Arauco” y continuó de 1544 hasta 1882. En 1569, un soldado español quien luchó contra los Mapuche llamado Alonso de Ercilla publicó una epopeya (poema épico) que se llama “La Araucana” en lo cual él glorifica los Mapuche.

Orélie Antoine de Tounens

Orélie Antoine de Tounens nació el 12 de mayo 1825 en Francia. Trabajó como “procurador del pueblo”. Leía mucho los libros de aventuras y conquistas (quizás incluyendo “La Araucana”). Para ser hombre sin influencia y posición social, tenía grandes aspiraciones: decidió hacerse conquistador y rey! Y siendo que los araucanos todavía no se habían conquistados, decidió ir a Chile para lograr sus deseos.

El “gran proyecto”
Orélie Antoine no pudo conseguir a nadie para financiar su “gran proyecto”. Entonces hipotecó algunos bienes de su familia para pagar el viaje y llegó solo a Chile en agosto de 1858. Después de casi dos años, envió una carta al gobierno francés pidiendo que le mandase 50 millones de francos, 5 a 20 mil soldados, un barco de guerra, y otras ayudas para combatir a los Chilenos. Firmó la carta como “Rey de Araucanía”. Entró el territorio de los Mapuche por primera vez al fin del año 1860 y se presentó a Quilapán, un cacique (jefe) de uno de las tribus Mapuche, comunicando a través de un intérprete.

Orélie Antoine proclamó a Quilapán y su tribu:

“Uds. están divididos en tribus independientes en torno de estados centralizados….Haced a mi el rey de la Araucanía y yo reuniré todas las fuerzas de la nación araucana! …Como rey de Araucanía yo hago el juramento de mantener sus fronteras sobre el río Bio-Bio y de expulsar los colones chilenos de la ‘Tierra’. Gritad conmigo: ‘Viva el Rey!’”

Según su propio relato, los Mapuche le eligieron como rey.

“Rey” de Araucanía y Patagonia
En el primer día de ser rey Orélie Antoine:

• Mandó proclamaciones a Francia, Chile, y otros países anunciando el Reino.
• Envió invitaciones al las otras tribus de Mapuche para que se reunieran al nuevo reino
• Presentó una constitución, escrito en francés, estableciendo una monarquía, que el había escrito mientras vivía en Francia. Los Mapuche ni pudieron leerla.
• Levantó una bandera para el nuevo reino que también había traído de Francia.

Después de cuatro días de ser rey anunció que Patagonia también sería parte del reino.

Después de 2 semanas en Araucanía, Orélie Antoine regresó a Chile. Durante el próximo año, publicó anuncios y proclamaciones en diarios chilenos y franceses acerca de su reino, pero nadie le dio mucho caso. Retornó a Araucanía en diciembre 1861 y comenzó visitar con caciques de los Mapche y pedirles que comprometiesen ayudar en la lucha contra Chile.

El “rey” aprisionado y exiliado
Después de unas semanas, Él fue detenido por los chilenos por fomentar “una sedición en territorio chileno”. Después de un juicio donde se decidió que era un loco, los chilenos expulsaron Orélie Antoine y lo mandaron a Francia. Allí, publicó un libro acerca de sus aventuras. Tres veces intentó regresar a su “reino” sin éxito.

Orélie Antoine de Tounens murió 17 de septiembre 1878 sin herederos. Un amigo llamado Gustave-Aquille Laviard se proclamó como el sucesor de Orélie Antoine y estableció un “gobierno en exilio” en París, lo cual nunca ha sido reconocido por ningún otro estado. Los descendientes de Laviard todavía se proclaman como reyes y reinas en exilio! Philippe Paul Alexandre Henry Boiry es “Rey” actual de Araucanía y Patagonía.

Take out a $20 bill and take a good look at the picture of President Andrew Jackson on the obverse side. Let’s review a little of the history of this controversial president, and then I’ll tell you what it can teach us about how to remedy our bloated and burdensome government.

In 1791, the U.S. Congress chartered the First Bank of the United States, and the bill was signed by President George Washington. The First Bank was chartered for 20 years, and in 1811, when the charter expired, Congress declined to renew it by just one vote. The First Bank ceased to exist. Then in 1816, Congress changed its mind and chartered a Second Bank of the United States, which was signed into existence by President James Madison (who had opposed the establishment of the First Bank, but changed his mind in the intervening years). The Second Bank was chartered for another 20 years.

The charter for the Second Bank of the United States expired in 1836, and Congress approved the renewal of the charter. However, President Andrew Jackson felt that — despite a Supreme Court decision to the contrary — central banking was unconstitutional. He vetoed the bill that would have renewed the Second Bank, and it ceased to exist. Ironically, Jackson’s image now adorns the face of our $20 bill under the modern incarnation of the national bank: the Federal Reserve.

I am not interested in arguing about Centralized Banking, International Banker Conspiracies, or Jackson’s role in increasing the power of the presidency. What does interest me is what the history of national banks and Jackson’s refusal to renew the charter can teach us about how to fix our unwieldy federal government. While the drama and political controversies are interesting, the most important aspect of Jackson’s murder of the Second Bank is so utterly obvious and uncontroversial that it is easy to overlook: the charters for both the First and Second Banks contained what is often called a “sunset clause.” They included their own expiration dates. After a twenty year period, the bank charters had to be renewed by the currently elected government or they would cease to exist.

Today, the federal government is mired in bureaucratic auxiliary organizations. We have a murder of Bureacronyms including the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, the DOJ, the DOD, DEA, FDA, FCC, HUD, the Federal Reserve, and a bunch of other bureacronyms. The Bush administration has added the Department of Homeland Security.

While I am not arguing for or against any specific auxiliary organization, many of them were added to the government before I was eligible to vote or before I was born. They are part of the government, and there is nothing I can do about it now. I do not think that such auxiliary organizations are unconstitutional; the government needs to be able to exercise its constitutional powers, and that may require such organizations to be created.

The Department of Homeland Security is an excellent example. At the moment, it is arguably necessary. But what about twenty or thirty years down the road? What if our children or grandchildren find it inefficient, intrusive, or oppressive? How are they to remove it from the government?

My suggestion is that we amend the Constitution to require all Bureacronyms, even traditional cabinet positions like the DOD to include a mandatory sunset clause or expiration date and that the expiration be no more than 35 years in the future. As its expiration date nears, each auxiliary organization would have to justify its existence, its current organization, function, and cost and its methods of fulfilling that function to the people and current elected government of the United States in order to renew its charter. Unless actively supported, government dead weight would automatically expire.

Sunset clauses might also be considered for involvement in international organizations and treaties, such as NATO and the United Nations. Unless participation or memberships were actively renewed, they would automatically expire on a given date.

The Founders were wise enough to include a sunset clause when establishing a national bank. They knew that just because it seemed to be a prudent action at the time, did not mean that twenty years later it would prove to be so. They wanted to be sure that the created entity would only continue to exist if the people continued to supported it. We should be as wise.

Now, thank Mr. Jackson for the lesson and put your $20 bill away before the IRS sees it.

When the Patriot Act was first adopted in the aftermath of September 11th, Congress wisely included sunset clauses on portions of the bill. In my view the Patriot act should be renewed as an important tool in the war on terrorism, but it should be renewed with a sunset clause that will ensure that the powers granted therein expire in ten or twenty years unless they are actively renewed by the representatives of the people. There is nothing wrong with granting our government necessary powers to win the war, but we should ensure that the powers are temporary by a vigorous use sunset clauses—not only in the Patriot Act, but in nearly all aspects of government.