Before the demise of the two brothers, Moriancumr and Jared, who led the Jaredite colony to the western hemisphere, the people were called together and a kingly government founded. Monarchial government was not established without remonstrance from Moriancumr, who declared that such government would lead to the destruction of liberty. [27] But Jared pleaded that the people might have the kind of government they desired, and proposed that they choose from among his own or his brother's sons the man they would have for king. The first choice of the people was Pagag, the eldest son of Moriancumr; but influenced, doubtless by the desire of his father that some other form of government should be established, Pagag declined the kingly honor. So also several of the sons of Jared declined to serve in that office, perhaps for the same reason. Finally, however, one of the sons of Jared, Orihah, accepted and was anointed king. The choice seems to have been a fortunate one, for it is said that Orihah walked humbly before the Lord and he remembered the great things the Lord had done for his fathers, as also did his people; and he executed judgment upon the land in righteousness all his days, and his days were many. [28] Orihah was succeeded by his son Kib, in whose reign the first rebellion took place; for the son of Kib rebelled against him, and even imprisoned the king until another son born in the old age of the captive monarch gathered sufficient strength to reinstate his father upon his throne. This was the commencement of a long series of such rebellions in the Jaredite dynasty. Of the nature of Jaredite government little can be learned beyond the fact that after the election of the first king, Orihah, the hereditary principle was recognized; and although there were frequent contestants for the throne, and occasional usurpations of the kingly authority, the legitimate line of hereditary monarchs seems to have been reasonably well maintained. It appears not to have been part of the constitution of the government, however, that the rights of heredity in the royal house should descend to the eldest son. It frequently happened that the son born in the old age of the reigning monarch succeeded to the kingly power, a course which perhaps accounts for the occasional rebellions of their brothers, though the rights of the first born are never urged as the cause of the quarrels. Of the subordinate officers of the kingdom nothing is said; by what means judicial powers were exercised we are not informed; what the nature of the military organization was, or what system of taxation was adopted, we do not know. On all these matters Moroni's abridgment of the record of Ether is silent. _Religion_.