The Idea of America

Last night I had the opportunity to hear a speech by the Utah Governor Spencer Cox and I really appreciated the story he told of one of his ancestors. He told the same story in his State of the State address this way: “Upon his arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, Orville was immediately sent up the canyon to help bring back timber to help solve Utah’s first housing crisis. Losing sight of his mission to bring back lumber to build new homes, Orville instead brought back a ‘magnificent specimen of a pine’ for a Liberty Pole that was raised on Pioneer Square just a few blocks from where we sit tonight. This was the first pole to carry the American flag in the Salt Lake Valley. You see, my great-great-great grandfather had every reason to hate the United States of America, a country that promised him his First Amendment right to a free exercise of religion only to see that same government stand aside when the mobs assembled. But he never gave up on the IDEA of America. He believed in the promise of what America could be — not what it was at that moment.” Indeed, the patriotism of the Latter-day Saints towards the United States of America—after they had been kicked out and denied the rights its founding documents promised them—is incredible. They believed in the revelations of God in which the Lord declared, “I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:80). They were able to still hold to the promise of freedoms found within the Constitution and Declaration of Independence even when they had been denied them time and time again.

                Governor Cox’s words reminded me of a talk that President Packer gave with a similar message in 2008. He spoke of a celebration that the Saints had on July 24, 1849, two years after they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. After recounting all of the persecutions they had faced, and how all appeals to the government had failed—in particular the words of President Martin Van Buren who told them “Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you”—President Packer described this event: “They built a bowery on Temple Square. They erected a flagpole 104 feet (32 m) tall. They made an enormous national flag 65 feet (20 m) in length and unfurled it at the top of this liberty pole.” He continued, “Their brass band played as President Brigham Young led a grand procession to Temple Square. He was followed by the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy. Then followed 24 young men dressed in white pants; black coats; white scarves on their right  shoulders; coronets, or crowns, on their heads; and a sheathed sword at their left sides. In their right hand, of all things, each carried a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The Declaration of Independence was read by one of those young men.” Elder Phineas Richards “spoke of the need for them to teach patriotism to their children and to love and honor freedom.” After telling of the persecution they had faced he said, “Brethren and friends, we who have lived to three-score years, have beheld the government of the United States in its glory, and know that the outrageous cruelties we have suffered proceeded from a corrupted and degenerate administration, while the pure principles of our boasted Constitution remain unchanged…. As we have inherited the spirit of liberty and the fire of patriotism from our fathers, so let them descend [unchanged] to our posterity.” Even though the blessings of freedom had not been fully realized for them, they could see past the immediate failings and realize that the principles of the Constitution that the Lord had inspired the founding fathers to establish were still true. That founding document was still a “glorious standard” and a “heavenly banner” as Joseph Smith had taught, and they wanted to be sure to pass on their patriotism to their posterity.  

                President Packer then commented on this event in these words: “One would think that, compelled by force of human nature, the Saints would seek revenge, but something much stronger than human nature prevailed…. If you can understand a people so long-suffering, so tolerant, so forgiving, so Christian after what they had suffered, you will have unlocked the key to what a Latter-day Saint is. Rather than being consumed with revenge, they were anchored to revelation. Their course was set by the teachings still found today in the Old and the New Testaments, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. If you can understand why they would celebrate as they did, you can understand why we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the principles of the gospel.” I love that idea—they were anchored to the revelations even when the wickedness of other men had failed to live up to them. “Neither mobbings nor the army could turn the Saints aside from what they knew to be true.” And so for us we too hold fast to the word of God and the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to weather the storms ahead. We will hold fast to the idea of America and its ideals of freedom because the Lord “established” them “for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:77).   President Packer encouraged us all: “We will stay on course. We will anchor ourselves as families and as a church to these principles and ordinances. Whatever tests lie ahead, and they will be many, we must remain faithful and true.”