Securing the Blessings of Liberty
According to the First Amendment
of the Constitution, citizens of the United States of America are guaranteed
“the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people… to
assemble”. Also, the nineteenth amendment grants us “the right to vote…” and
promises that that right “…shall not be denied or abridged”. Agency is not only
a core and fundamental element of the Constitution but it is also an important
principle pertaining to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The LDS
church believes that we as citizens of the
United States must become people of higher
morals because we have been given the freedom to vote, or to express our agency; through this agency, we must continuously exercise the fundamental
values on which our Constitution was built.
Whether we are everyday citizens
or the President of the United States, we
must continually exercise our agency along with good values to protect and
preserve the freedoms accorded to us by the
Constitution. It is our responsibility as citizens to exercise our agency and act within the freedom and liberties of which we
enjoy. The LDS church believes that our liberty is “a personal moral responsibility to perform
[our] duties and to exercise [our] corresponding rights” (Oaks, Rights and Responsibilities). One of
those most fundamental rights is the right to vote. The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints strongly promotes living and voting with moral
responsibility. It is impossible to become true Americans without the incorporation of
good morals because we live in a country founded as such. In order to enjoy our
individual liberties we must take advantage of the corresponding
responsibilities; such responsibilities
include using our moral agency in being honest citizens, demonstrating respect
for the country and honoring the rights of others afforded by the Constitution.
As we become cultivated in our nationhood we are able to maximize our responsibilities
as citizens and as we do so “implant in our hearts a love of freedom and human
rights, and a desire to preserve them.” (Snow, The Past and Future of the American Continent)
The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints publicly states that it is our responsibility as partakers of
a great nation, to instill these values as a backbone for our decisions with
relation to government. Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the 12 Apostles of the LDS
church, expresses that being an individual with high morals is a blessing and
that “those who enjoy the blessings of liberty under a divinely inspired
constitution should promote morality.” Because our country has empowered us with
the liberty to vote, we must elect virtuous leaders who defend the principles
of the Constitution. It is important that we elect virtuous leaders, because
without them, the entire Constitution and the country itself would indeed
crumble. Brigham Young also reminds us that we the “people should concentrate
[our] feelings, [our] influence, and [our] faith, to select the best man [we]
can find to be [our] President.” It is our natural right as citizens to choose
for ourselves whom we will serve and to who will serve us; let us choose, through
our freedoms, to create a government that will continue to defend solid morals.
John Adams states, “Our Constitution
was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the
government of any other." To secure the “blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity,” we must become a people who strive to unify ourselves
through protection and incorporation of good morals. The LDS church believes in
enjoying and preserving this freedom.
