General Smith's Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United StatesSmith, Joseph, Jr.
History
General Smith's Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States
Smith, Joseph, Jr.
Church and state -- Mormon Church; Latter Day Saints
Give every man his constitutional freedom, and the president full
power to send an army to suppress mobs; and the states authority to
repeal and impugn that relic of folly, which makes it necessary for the
governor of a state to make the demand of the president for troops, in
case of invasion or rebellion. The governor himself may be a mobber
and, instead of being punished, as he should be for murder and treason,
he may destroy the very lives, rights, and property he should protect.
Like the good Samaritan, send every lawyer as soon as he repents and
obeys the ordinances of heaven, to preach the gospel to the destitute,
without purse or scrip, pouring in the oil and the wine: a learned
priesthood is certainly more honorable than an "_hireling clergy_."
As to the contiguous territories to the United States, wisdom would
direct no tangling alliance: Oregon belongs to this government
honorably, and when we have the red man's consent, let the union
spread from the east to the west sea; and if Texas petitions Congress
to be adopted among the sons of liberty, give her the right hand of
fellowship; and refuse not the same friendly grip to Canada and Mexico;
and when the right arm of freemen is stretched out in the character
of a navy, for the protection of rights, commerce and honor, let the
iron eyes of power, watch from Maine to Mexico, and from California
to Columbia; thus may union be strengthened, and foreign speculation
prevented from opposing broadside to broadside.
Seventy years have done much for this goodly land; they have burst the
chains of oppression and monarchy; and multiplied its inhabitants from
two to twenty millions; with a proportionate share of knowledge: keen
enough to circumnavigate the globe; draw the lightning from the clouds:
and cope with all the crowned heads of the world.
Then why? Oh! why! will a once flourishing people not arise, phoenix
like, over the cinders of Martin Van Buren's power; and over the
sinking fragments and smoking ruins of other catamount politicians; and
over the windfalls of Benton, Calhoun, Clay, Wright, and a caravan of
other equally unfortunate law doctors, and cheerfully help to spread a
plaster and bind up the _burnt, bleeding wounds_ of a sore but blessed
country? The southern people are hospitable and noble: they will help
to rid so _free_ a country of every vestige of slavery, when ever they
are assured of an equivalent for their property. The country will be
full of money and confidence, when a national bank of twenty millions,
and a state bank in every state, with a million or more, gives a tone
to monetary matters, and makes a circulating medium as valuable in
the purses of the whole community, as in the coffers of a speculating
banker or broker.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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