“Our Inspired Constitutions,” Liahona, Oct. 2023, United States and Canada Section.
Our Inspired Constitutions
The Church’s history is filled with times when inspired constitutions helped pave the way for preaching the restored gospel and blessed members’ lives.
Latter-day Saints gathered in Independence, Missouri, in the early 1830s but were persecuted and driven out. At that time, the Lord gave a revelation to the Prophet about the law, freedom, and rights (see Doctrine and Covenants 98).
Illustration of Independence, Missouri, from The United States Illustrated, ed. Charles A. Dana (1855)
In the summer of 1833, prominent citizens in the town of Independence, Missouri, held a meeting about how to drive out their Latter-day Saint neighbors. Men soon attacked the Saints’ shops, abused Church leaders, and terrorized members. In that moment, the Saints felt the vulnerability many religious, racial, and other minority groups often experience.
Before long, words of guidance to the Saints came by revelation. Even though the government had failed to protect them, the Lord called the Saints’ attention toward the inspired potential in the United States Constitution and the country’s legal system. The Lord said, “That law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before me” (Doctrine and Covenants 98:5).
Even if those early Saints had good reasons for discouragement, a brighter day was dawning. Since that revelation, constitutional principles have gained global strength. In his general conference address “Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution,” President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency, noted that all but three of the world’s countries have adopted written constitutions. He further described how inspired amendments can strengthen constitutions and promote divine principles.1
The Church’s history is filled with times when inspired constitutions helped pave the way for preaching the restored gospel and blessed members’ lives. Denmark, for example, became a successful early mission partly because of a bold new constitution the country adopted in 1849. In Mexico, key leaders introduced—and fought to protect—constitutional principles that gave the first Latter-day Saint converts religious freedom. And Cape Verde is an example of a country where a more recent constitution has blessed the lives of Church members.
Though no constitution is perfect, Latter-day Saints can learn from studying the history of these and other inspired documents. We can see the Lord’s hand at work in expanding people’s rights to live and worship according to the dictates of their own conscience (see Articles of Faith 1:11).
Elder Erastus Snow served a mission in Denmark in 1849, arriving just four months after the king had signed the constitution, which guaranteed religious freedom. Elder Snow wrote, “The Lord had been preparing the way before us.”
Denmark
On June 5, 1849, King Frederik VII signed the Constitution of Denmark, which limited royal power and protected key civil liberties, including religious freedom. Just four months later, Erastus Snow and Peter O. Hansen were called to serve as missionaries in Scandinavia. When they arrived in Copenhagen the next spring, they found Denmark and its people uniquely prepared for the gospel to blossom and grow. “During the recent revolutions in Europe, an important political change had taken place in Denmark in favor of democratic principles,” wrote Elder Erastus Snow (1818–88) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, specifically noting the promise of religious toleration. “Thus we saw that the Lord had been preparing the way before us in a manner that we knew not of,” he testified.2
As in the United States, Denmark’s promise of religious freedom was not always respected in practice. Many Danes saw The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a threat to Danish cultural identity, and many early Church members experienced persecution. But when opponents tried to pass laws restricting the new faith, many in the Danish parliament, press, and Lutheran Church defended the constitution’s promise of religious freedom, including for the Saints.
Elder Snow wrote that if the missionaries had arrived before the constitution, the law “would have been against us.”3 Instead, the constitution allowed for a Danish translation of the Book of Mormon to be published and for converts to practice and share their faith. In an 1851 report to President Brigham Young, Elder Snow acknowledged the Lord’s timing: “Probably an earlier mission to that country would have proved a failure.”4
A group of individuals in Mexico who had embraced the Book of Mormon published their own religious newspaper, La voz del desierto.
Newspaper image courtesy of Brigham Young University Special Collections
Mexico
Mexico gained its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, but the new government maintained old limits on religious freedom and freedom of the press. The Catholic Church remained the official religion and had control over education, marriage, and other parts of public life. Similar conditions across Latin America limited people’s ability to learn about the restored gospel: the attempt by Elder Parley P. Pratt (1807–57) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to open a mission in Chile in 1851 ended not only because of his struggle with Spanish but also because he couldn’t preach openly or print religious materials without restrictions.5
Through laws in 1855 and a new constitution in 1857, however, reformers in Mexico expanded citizens’ rights. They guaranteed freedom to share and print ideas. They separated church and state and decreed religious freedom. But these reforms encountered resistance and led to years of armed conflict. In 1862, anti-reform groups even encouraged foreign nations to invade Mexico and establish an emperor. For years, Benito Juárez headed a government in exile that continued to fight for constitutional principles. That government was finally victorious in the late 1860s.
The rights to publish and share information allowed Mexico’s citizens to consider new ideas and beliefs. In 1874, President Brigham Young called missionaries to prepare to preach in Mexico. These missionaries began by translating selections from the Book of Mormon, which they were now permitted to share by mail with Mexico’s leading intellectuals. Even before the first missionaries arrived in the capital, a small group of individuals embraced the Book of Mormon message. Thanks to press and religious freedoms, they were able to print their own religious newspaper, La voz del desierto, to celebrate the Restoration’s promises for native peoples in the Americas and its potential to bless their country.6
Latter-day Saints in Mexico today owe a debt of gratitude to these early Saints in Mexico City who exercised their freedom and to the inspired reformers who dreamed of greater freedom, drafted a constitution, and defended its principles.
The Praia Cape Verde Temple, dedicated in June 2022.
Cape Verde
Today the Church is thriving in Cape Verde. The Praia Temple, dedicated in 2022, serves four stakes and a district. A person seeing these members worship and serve might be surprised to learn that missionary work in the country first began just over three decades ago, in 1988.
While faith can grow under many different conditions, Latter-day Saints in Cape Verde have been blessed to worship under the protections of a constitutional system. International organizations who study democracy, press freedom, and honest governance regularly give a high rank to Cape Verde’s performance. An ability to work together and adapt to changes has been part of that strength. When the constitution was first adopted in 1980, for example, Cape Verde’s system was based on single-party rule. The first members joined the Church under this system.
As the Berlin Wall fell in Europe, however, people in Cape Verde felt motivated to ask for more options in their country as well. After holding multi-party elections for the first time, the country revised its constitution in 1992. “The 1992 constitution helped make people’s lives better, as it guaranteed respect for human rights,” said Daniel Romana dos Santos of the Mindelo Cape Verde Stake. That same year, his family used their expanded religious freedom to join the Church. “Today, I am grateful to live in a free and peaceful country,” Brother dos Santos said, “and to be able to follow the gospel of Jesus Christ the way I always wanted to.”
Since 1992, both of the country’s major parties have respected peaceful transitions of power and passed additional amendments to the constitution. Citizens have recognized that who leads after a given election is less important than the long-term health of the shared governing system.
Be Involved in Civic Affairs
Latter-day Saints around the world embrace many different political perspectives. “We should never assert that a faithful Latter-day Saint cannot belong to a particular party or vote for a particular candidate,” President Oaks taught. “We teach correct principles and leave our members to choose how to prioritize and apply those principles.”7 At the same time, Latter-day Saints can be united in their attempts to follow and speak up for the inspired principles in their constitutions.
It takes work, civility, and compromise to maintain systems of government that honor the will of the people and protect minority rights. Just as inspired people in the United States, Denmark, Mexico, Cape Verde, and other countries worked to establish constitutional systems, Latter-day Saints can join their fellow citizens in defending and improving the constitutions and laws under which they live. “We should be knowledgeable citizens who are active in making our influence felt in civic affairs,” President Oaks taught,8 reminding us that “our belief in divine inspiration gives Latter-day Saints a unique responsibility to uphold and defend … principles of constitutionalism wherever we live.”9
The authors live in the United States, Denmark, Mexico, and Cape Verde.