Skip to content

Politics

Quotes from the Brethren

Gordon B. Hinckley–
The Church does not endorse any political party or any political candidate, nor does it permit the use of Church buildings and facilities for political purposes. We believe that the Church should remain out of politics unless there is a moral question at issue. And in the case of a moral issue we would expect to speak out on our view. But, in the matter of everyday political considerations, we try to remain aloof from those as a Church, while at the same time urging our members, as citizens, to exercise their political franchise as individuals. And we believe, likewise, that it is in the interest of good government to permit freedom of worship, freedom of religion. Our official statement says, ‘We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may’ [A of F 1:11]. (Gordon B. Hinckley, press conference, Tokyo, Japan, 18 May 1996)

The First Presidency–
To further clarify their role, the First Presidency has said: “The many and varied circumstances in which our Church members live … make it inadvisable for the Church to involve itself institutionally in every local community issue. These challenges are best responded to by members as they meet their obligations as citizens—preferably in concert with other like-minded individuals. Only the First Presidency and the Twelve can declare a particular issue to be a moral issue worthy of full institutional involvement. Absent such a declaration, Church members should exercise great care and caution to distinguish between what they may do as citizens in exercising their full constitutional rights and what the Church might do as an institution.” (“The Latter-day Saint Perspective,” Ensign, Mar. 1980, 19 )

Ezra Taft Benson–
Said President Harold B. Lee:

“You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may conflict with your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life … Your safety and ours depends upon whether or not we follow … Let’s keep our eye on the President of the Church.” (Conference Report, October 1970, p. 152–153.)

But it is the living prophet who really upsets the world. “Even in the Church,” said President Kimball, “many are prone to garnish the sepulchres of yesterdays prophets and mentally stone the living ones.” (Instructor, 95:527.)

Why? Because the living prophet gets at what we need to know now, and the world prefers that prophets either be dead or worry about their own affairs. Some so-called experts of political science want the prophet to keep still on politics. Some would-be authorities on evolution want the prophet to keep still on evolution. And so the list goes on and on.

How we respond to the words of a living prophet when he tells us what we need to know, but would rather not hear, is a test of our faithfulness. (Ezra Taft Benson, “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet,” Tambuli, June 1981, 1 )

John A. Widtsoe–
Church leaders feel themselves free and under obligation to discourse on any and every need of the day and of man, no matter under what man-given name it appears. They would be poor leaders if silence was enjoined upon them within any field of human interest. Indeed, the very life of the Church is involved in this free discussion of man’s welfare.

However, let no misconceptions arise. The Church holds itself aloof from propagandists or parties. In politics, for example, it is neither Republican, Democratic nor “mugwump.” It tests and measures every man-made policy by the eternal, unchanging principles of the gospel. If a proposed policy is in harmony with these principles, it is approved by the Church, if in opposition to gospel principles it is disapproved. The ax hews at untruth no matter where the chips may fall. Whether Democrats wail or Republicans weep is of no consequence. The Church is not in politics, but up to the shoulders in the fight for truth, which is the battle for humanity’s welfare. (John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliation, Bookcraft, 1960)

Quotes from the Founders

James Madison–
We have heard of the impious doctrine in the old world, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same doctrine to be revived in the new, in another shape – that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to the views of political institutions of a different form? It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object. (Madison, James Federalist No. 45)

George Washington–
Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party generally. . . . A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. (Washington, George Farewell Address, September 19, 1796)

John Adams–
We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. (Adams, John Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797)

Thomas Jefferson–
The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people. (Jefferson, Thomas letter to John Dickinson, July 23, 1801)

James Madison–
We have heard of the impious doctrine in the old world, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same doctrine to be revived in the new, in another shape – that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to the views of political institutions of a different form? It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object. (Madison, James Federalist No. 45)

John Adams–
I have accepted a seat in the [Massachusetts] House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and the ruin of our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare your mind for your fate. (Adams, John to Abigail Adams, May, 1770)

John Adams–
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. (Adams, John letter to Abigail Adams 1780)

Alexander Hamilton–
In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution. (Hamilton, Alexander Federalist No. 1, October 27, 1787)

James Madison–
It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object. (Madison, James Federalist No. 45, January 26, 1788)

George Washington–
[N]or did I believe until lately, that it was within the bonds of probability; hardly within those of possibility, that, while I was using my utmost exertions to establish a national character of our own, independent, as far as our obligations, and justice would permit, of every nation of the earth; and wished, by steering a steady course, to preserve this Country from the horrors of a desolating war, that I should be accused of being the enemy of one Nation, and subject to the influence of another; and to prove it, that every act of my administration would be tortured, and the grossest, and most insidious mis-representations of them be made (by giving one side only of a subject, and that too in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero; a notorious defaulter; or even to a common pick-pocket). (Washington, George letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 6, 1796)

George Washington–
Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party generally. . . . A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. (Washington, George Farewell Address, September 19, 1796)

John Adams–
We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. (Adams, John Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797)

Thomas Jefferson–
The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people. (Jefferson, Thomas letter to John Dickinson, 1801)

Thomas Jefferson–
To restore… harmony,… to render us again one people acting as one nation should be the object of every man really a patriot. (Jefferson, Thomas letter to Thomas McKean, 1801)

Thomas Jefferson–
The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people. (Jefferson, Thomas letter to John Dickinson, July 23, 1801)

Thomas Jefferson–
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good….Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. (Jefferson, Thomas First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801)

Thomas Jefferson–
The duty of an upright administration is to pursue its course steadily, to know nothing of these family dissentions, and to cherish the good principles of both parties. (Jefferson, Thomas letter to George Logan, 1805)

Thomas Jefferson–
If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check. (Jefferson, Thomas letter to William Duane, 1811)

Speeches and Other Resources

VN:F [1.6.3_896]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)

Share/Save/Bookmark

By Matthew Piccolo 2:39 pm