Thoughts on Joseph Smith and the Constitution « Back to Front Page By JOHN W. WELCH, Professor of Law at Brigham Young University This past semester, my co-editors on the Joseph Smith Legal Papers team and I have taught a research seminar at the J. Reuben Clark Law School about Joseph Smith and the law. We have learned many things about Joseph Smith and the law, particularly about his views on government and the United States Constitution. As the nation gears up (or down) once again to select the next president of the country, it would do us all good to turn our thoughts back to the words of the Prophet concerning the Constitution, which he called a “glorious standard.” A careful reading of his revelations, his 1844 presidential campaign pamphlet, and some of his letters and talks gives us much to contemplate even today. Confronting political and social problems in Missouri in 1833, a revelation set an interesting standard for determining when a law of the land is “constitutional,” namely if it “support[s] the principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges [that belong] to all mankind” (D&C 98:5-6). Four troubled months later, another revelation affirmed support for the rule of law and the due process of petition for redress: “It is my will that [people] should continue to importune for redress … according to the laws and constitution of the people, which I [God] have suffered to be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles; that every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another” (D&C 101:76-79). Then in 1836, in the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple, Joseph prayed that “those principles, which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever” (D&C 109:54). I would argue that “the principles” which are referred to on these occasions are to be found in the Declaration of Independence, with its bold assertion of human equality and the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and, more particularly, in the Preamble to the Constitution. Although the Preamble is not often cited in judicial opinions as “governing constitutional law,” the more I read about Joseph Smith and the law, the more I become convinced that, for Joseph Smith, the essence of the Constitution was to be found in the Preamble. For Joseph, the Preamble was not mere window-dressing or literary prologue. It was the sum and substance of the law of the land. While the various articles and provisions of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were important instrumentalities, they merely articulated and implemented the purposes set forth in the Preamble. Near the very beginning of his 1844 presidential platform, Joseph quoted the Preamble in full: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Here we find the principles that lay at the root of what Joseph Smith meant by “the Constitution,” namely (1) the popular basis of legal and governmental authority, (2) unity in the union and among all people, (3) establishing justice and the equal rights of all people, (4) insuring peace and tranquility at home, (5) providing the public protection of life and property, (6) promoting the general welfare and full well-being of all people, and (7) securing liberty for this generation and for generations to come. Not a bad platform, even today. In his writings and speeches, one can readily find comments by Joseph Smith on each of these seven principles (with apologies to Stephen R. Covey). For example, in his Views of the Powers and Policies of the Government, the Prophet saw the power of government resting with the people. He said, “In the United States the people are the government, and their united voice is the only sovereign that should rule, the only power that should be obeyed.” Thus, he admonished, “The aspirations and expectations of a virtuous people, environed with so wise, so liberal, so deep, so broad, and so high a charter of equal rights as appears in said Constitution, ought to be treated by those to whom the administration of the laws is entrusted with as much sanctity as the prayers of the Saints are treated in heaven.” He decried disunity, party squabbling, and sectional politics. He asserted: “Unity is power; and when I reflect on the importance of it to the stability of all governments, I am astounded at the silly moves of persons and parties to foment discord in order to ride into power on the current of popular excitement …. Democracy, Whiggery, and cliquery will attract their elements and foment divisions among the people, to accomplish fancied schemes and accumulate power, while poverty, driven to despair, like hunger forcing its way through a wall, will break through the statues of men to save life, and mend the breach in prison glooms …. We have had Democratic Presidents, Whig Presidents, a pseudo-Democratic-Whig President, and now it is time to have a President of the United States.” Liberty was his watchword. In a sermon in 1843 in Nauvoo, he said “It is a love of liberty which inspires my soul, civil and religious liberty were diffused into my soul by my grandfathers, while they dandled me on their knees.” Of course, he spoke strongly in favor of religious liberty for all churches and believers. In 1843, he said “If it has been demonstrated that I have been willing to die for a Mormon I am bold to declare before heaven that I am just as ready to die for a Presbyterian, a Baptist or any other denomination.” In 1841, he sponsored “An Ordinance on Religious Liberty in Nauvoo” providing that all “religious sects and denominations whatever, shall have free toleration, and equal privileges, in this city.” While Joseph Smith admired the Constitution’s noble provisions of freedom, he felt that it did not go far enough to protect those liberties and accomplish its purposes: “I am the greatest advocate of the Constitution of the United States there is on the earth. In my feelings I am always ready to die for the protection of the weak and oppressed in their just rights. The only fault I find with the Constitution is, it is not broad enough to cover the whole ground.” Diverging sharply from important constitutional interpretations embraced by the federal judiciary and prominent political thinkers of his day, Joseph’s critique of the national political system would soon prove to be prophetic. Perhaps most telling of all, are the words penned by Joseph Smith near the end of his March 20, 1839, letter from Liberty Jail. There, while experiencing first hand the inability of the Constitution to deliver the protections so clearly set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution, Joseph still bore his testimony of seven things whose truth he held to be amply evident: “We say that God is true, that the Constitution of the United States is true, that the Bible is true, that the Book of Mormon is true, that the Book of Covenants is true, that Christ is true, that the ministering angels sent forth from God are true.” It speaks volumes that Joseph should list the Constitution as second on this list, after God, and before the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, Jesus Christ, and the ministrations he had received from angels sent from God. Much more needs to be said about how the Constitution and the Preamble were understood in Joseph Smith’s day, how law operated in early nineteenth-century America, and how the Prophet hoped and prayed that the principles of the Constitution would be “established forever.” But in the mean time, as we get caught up again in our political cycle of current interests, we may hope that good lawyers and sharp law students will keep us all aware of the fundamental principles that Joseph Smith clearly saw as standing at the very top of the Constitution and, therefore, at the head of all political, legal and constitutional theory and practice.