Not the best voice.
Not the most handsome.
Not a staged performance.
Not the greatest video.
Not a professional recording.
Not a paid advertisement.
Not the entire National Anthem.
Not a very well known verse.
Not a dry eye in the crowd.
This is OUR INSPIRATIONAL FAMILY FOCUS! One that we never want to forget!
AND THE FOLLOWING IS FROM THE LANDMARK TALK GIVEN BY PRES. EZRA TAFT BENSON IN 1976 - OUR BI-CENTENNIAL:
The framers of the Constitution were men raised up by God to establish this foundation of our government, for so the Lord has declared by revelation in these words:
“I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.” (D&C 101:80; italics added.)
Yes, this is a land fertilized by the blood of patriots. During the struggle for independence, nearly 9,000 of the colonist forces were killed. Among those fifty-six patriots who had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor by signing the Declaration of Independence, at least nine paid that price with their life’s blood.
At the close of the Revolution, the thirteen states found themselves independent but then faced grave internal economic and political problems. The Articles of Confederation had been adopted but proved to be ineffectual. Under this instrument, the nation was without a president, a head. There was a congress, but it was a body destitute of any power. There was no supreme court. The states were merely a confederation.
Who were these delegates, those whom the Lord designated “wise men” whom he raised up? They were mostly young men in the prime of their life, their average age being forty-four. Benjamin Franklin was the eldest at eighty-one. George Washington, the presiding officer at the convention, was fifty-five. Alexander Hamilton was only thirty-two; James Madison, who recorded the proceedings of the convention with his remarkable Notes, was only thirty-six. These were young men, but men of exceptional character, “sober, seasoned, distinguished men of affairs, drawn from various walks of life.” (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Stand Fast by Our Constitution, Deseret Book Co., 1965, p. 135.)
Of the thirty-nine signers, twenty-one of them were educated in the leading American colleges and in Great Britain; eighteen were, or had been, lawyers or judges; twenty-six had seen service in the Continental Congress; nineteen had served in the Revolutionary army, seventeen as officers. Four had been on Washington’s personal staff during the war. Among that assembly of the thirty-nine signers were to be found two future presidents of the United States, one the “Father of his Country”; a vice-president of the United States; a secretary of the treasury; a secretary of war; a secretary of state; two chief justices of the Supreme Court, and three who served as justices; and the venerable Franklin, a diplomat, philosopher, scientist, and statesman.
“They were not backwoodsmen from far-off frontiers, not one of them. … There has not been another such group of men in all [the 200 years of our history] that even challenged the supremacy of this group.” (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Reports, April 1957, p. 47.) President Wilford Woodruff said they “were the best spirits the God of heaven could find on the face of the earth. They were choice spirits. …” (Wilford Woodruff, Cr, April 1898, p. 89)
Following the drafting of the Constitution, it awaited ratification by the states. In 1787 three states ratified the Constitution. In the next year eight more followed; and on April 6, 1789, 187 years ago today, the Constitution of the United States went into operation as the basic law of the United States when the electoral college unanimously elected George Washington as the first president of the nation. This date, I believe, was not accidental.
In the final analysis, what the framers did, under the inspiration of God, was to draft a document that merited the approval of God himself, who declared it to “be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh.” (D&C 101:77)
The document has been criticized by some as outmoded, and even a recent president of the United States criticized it as a document “written for an entirely different period in our nation’s history.” (U.S. News and World Report, Dec. 17, 1962, p. 104.) The eminent Constitutional authority, President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., has answered this argument in these words:
“These were the horse and buggy days as they have been called in derision; these were the men who traveled in the horsedrawn buggies and on horseback; but these were the men who carried under their hats, as they rode in the buggies and on their horses, a political wisdom garnered from the ages.” (Stand Fast by Our Constitution, p. 136.)
What those framers did can be better appreciated when it is considered that when the instrument went into operation, it covered only thirteen states with fewer than four million people. Today it adequately covers fifty states and over 200 million people."
"...America, North and South, is a choice land, a land reserved for God’s own purposes. This land and its inhabitants are under an everlasting decree. The Lord revealed this decree to the brother of Jared, an American prophet, in these solemn words:
“And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity.
“Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ. …” (Ether 2:9, 10, 12.)
The Lord has also decreed that this land should be “the place of the New Jerusalem, which should come down out of heaven, … the holy sanctuary of the Lord.” (Ether 13:3.) Here is our nation’s destiny! To serve God’s eternal purposes and to prepare this land and people for America’s eventual destiny, the Lord established the Constitution of this land by the hands of wise men whom he raised up to this very purpose. (See D&C 101:80.)
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
“It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the Offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.” (“A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America,” March 30, 1863, as cited in Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Washington, D.C.: United States Congress, 1897, pp. 164–65.)
“I say to you that the price of liberty is and always has been blood, human blood, and if our liberties are lost, we shall never regain them except at the price of blood. They must not be lost!” (Stand Fast by Our Constitution, p. 137.)
A citizen of this republic cannot do his duty and be an idle spectator. How appropriate and vital it is at the time of our nation’s 200th birthday to remember this counsel from the Lord:
“Honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold.” (D&C 98:10.)
Goodness, wisdom, and honesty are the three qualities of statesmanship, qualities this country needs more than ever before. May we be wise—prayerfully wise—in the electing of those who would lead us. May we select only those who understand and will adhere to Constitutional principles. To do so, we need to understand these principles ourselves.
In 1973 the First Presidency of the Church made public this statement:
“We urge members of the Church and all Americans to begin now to reflect more intently on the meaning and importance of the Constitution, and of adherence to its principles.” (Ensign, Nov. 1973, p. 90.)
I reverence the Constitution of the United States as a sacred document. To me its words are akin to the revelations of God, for God has placed his stamp of approval on the Constitution of this land. I testify that the God of heaven selected and sent some of his choicest spirits to lay the foundation of this government as a prologue to the restoration of the gospel and the second coming of our Savior.
May God bless us to protect this sacred instrument. In the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith, “May 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.)"
