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April 25, 1844

On March 11, 1844, as Joseph Smith was laying the organizational foundation of the Council of Fifty, the “subject of forming a constitution which shall be according to the mind of God” arose for deliberation. Members of the council spoke “very warmly” about what to do, since this constitution was regarded as “a ‘standard’ to the people [and] an ensign to the nations.”[1] A committee was appointed “to draft a constitution and present it to this council for their approval or disapproval.” Four men composed this committee: John Taylor, Willard Richards, William W. Phelps, and Parley P. Pratt.[2] Their task was a daunting one. How could they adequately compose a constitution for what was meant to be nothing less than the political and civic arm—the “municipal department,” as one council member deemed it[3]—of God’s kingdom on earth?

The first attempt to draft this constitution did not, it seems, go well. Pratt later deemed his initial efforts as mere “scribbling” that he consigned to the flame.[4] Eventually, however, a text was produced and presented to the council on April 18, 1844. “We, the people of the Kingdom of God,” its preamble began, echoing that of the United States Constitution ratified on June 21, 1788.[5] But the text composed by the committee, as ambitious and inspired as it may have been, was “less a blueprint for a functioning government than an effort to state a philosophy of government.”[6] Pratt explained a year later how the committee abandoned its project because it recognized the futility of human efforts in this sort of endeavor. “If we made a constitution,” Pratt informed the Council of Fifty, “it would be a man-made thing.” Instead, Pratt “considered that if God gave us laws to govern us and we receive those laws, [then] God must also give us a constitution.”[7]

Sure enough, on April 25, 1844, the Lord revealed through Joseph Smith that there would be no need to draft a written constitution for the Kingdom of God. In a short declaration the Lord identified his servants in the Council of Fifty as his “constitution” and “spokesmen.” Guided by ongoing revelation God’s righteous ministers would be a living constitution that would meet the needs of the kingdom as practicable. This revelation ended further deliberations, and after noting this brief “constitution” on a “scrip of paper,” the Prophet “advised that [the council] let the constitution alone.”[8] Decades later in September 1897, long after the Council of Fifty had disbanded, President George Q. Cannon, First Counselor to then Council of Fifty member and now Church President Wilford Woodruff, drove home the point of this revelation when he observed how “the priesthood, the living oracles, are the word of God unto [the Latter-day Saints], and this constitutes the growth and strength of the kingdom of God. Without this word coming through this authority, this work would stand still or go backward.”[9]

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Verily, thus saith the Lord—ye are my constitution, and I am your God, and ye are my spokesmen. From henceforth do as I shall command you, saith the Lord.

Notes

[1] JSP, CFM:42.

[2] JSP, CFM:54.

[3] See John D. Lee, Journal, September 21, 1848, in A Mormon Chronicle: The Diaries of John D. Lee, 1848–1876, ed. Robert Glass Cleland and Juanita Brooks (San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1955), 1:80. “This council aluded too [the Council of Fifty] is the Municipal department of the Kingdom of God set up on the Earth, and from which all Law eminates, for the rule, government & controle of all Nations Kingdoms & toungs and People under the whole Heavens but not to controle the Priesthood but to council, deliberate & plan for the general good & upbuilding of the Kingdom of God on the Earth.” Another council member, Benjamin F. Johnson, described the Council of Fifty as “the embryo Kingdom of God upon the earth—an organization distinct from the Church, a nucleus of popular government which will exist for all people . . . a government formed of representatives from every nation, principality or tribe upon the earth; a government of God for the people and by the people, in which man will be taught to know his origin and to govern himself, which will continue through the millennial period as the outer wall or government around the inner temple of priesthood, until all are come to the knowledge of God.” Benjamin J. Johnson, “A Life Review, circa 1885–1894, 1923,” 94, MS 1289, CHL.

[4] JSP, CFM:137n412.

[5] JSP, CFM:110.

[6] Nathan B. Oman, “‘We the People of the Kingdom of God’: Constitution Writing in the Council of Fifty,” in The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History, ed. Matthew J. Grow and R. Eric Smith (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 64.

[7] JSP, CFM:467.

[8] JSP, CFM:130, 135.

[9] “Cannon on Politics. An Interesting Discourse Delivered in Idaho,” Salt Lake Herald, September 16, 1897, 5.