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God Mend Thine Every Flaw

If you would permit me, may I share some thoughts with you in regards to America, her constitution, her founders, and her freedom?

In 1788, in reference to the constitution, George Washington said, “It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that the delegates from so many [different] states … should unite in forming a system of national government, so little liable to well-founded objections.” (Miracle At Philadelphia, Catherine Drinker Bowen, Boston, Little, Brown, and Co., 1966, p. 17) He was perhaps the first to call our constitution ‘a miracle.’

When the Constitutional Convention was called, there were three and one-half million newly independent radically divided Americans. As a country, we were weak and vulnerable, and in the middle of a depression. Inflation ran rampant. The national treasury – was non-existent, and the currencies of the time were nearly worthless. Our trade deficit was staggering!

Congress was an all but powerless laughingstock among the people. Conditions sound all too familiar. There was much of bickering and disunity among the colonists when a convention was proposed and promoted by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington.

From May 25 to September 17 of 1787, 55 delegates labored to create – and note this – the first written constitution in the world’s history, that document which Gladstone would later call, ‘the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.’

Of our constitution, Benjamin Franklin who was in that convention said, “I consent, Sir, to this constitution because I expect no better, and because I’m not sure that it is not the best.”

My friends, our constitution was inspired of God. Contrary to what anyone else may think, it was inspired of God. It has been our most important export. With the exception of six, every country in the world with a one-document constitution has followed the United States’ model.

I agree with the sentiments of a great patriot, George Albert Smith who once said, “I am saying to you that to me the Constitution of the United States is just as much from my Heavenly Father as the Ten Commandments.” (CR, 1948, p. 182)

Now, what of those men? What of those foreordained men who drafted this great and inspired document? One of them, James Madison said of his colleagues, “There never was an assembly of men charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them.” (The Charter of Liberty, William O. Nelson, Salt Lake City, Deseret Book Co., 1987, p. 44)

It has been observed that, “Only for the brief span of one lifetime would America’s statesmen and her brightest thinkers be the same men.” (Wise Men Raised Up, Frank Fox and LeGrand Baker, Ensign, June 1976, p. 29)

Our future: As a nation, we will survive if, and only if, we will serve the God of this land who is Jesus Christ. (Ether 2:12)

George Washington himself once said, “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” More simply he said, “It is impossible to govern the world without the Bible.”

Our second president, John Adams, said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.” (The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles F. Adams, ed., 1854)

And finally, concerning our future and our freedom, from Samuel Adams, the Father of the American Revolution, he said, “I thank God that I have lived to see my country independent and free. She may long enjoy her independence and freedom if she will. It depends upon her virtue.” (Wells, The Life of Samuel Adams, 3:175)

America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law. (Song lyric: America, The Beautiful)