A friend just emailed me a link to this great site. I have some wonderful videotapes with similar information, but here is a quick summary of our roots.
The delegates were the recipients of heavenly inspiration. James Madison, often referred to as the father of the Constitution, wrote: "It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution" (The Federalist, no. 37, ed. Henry Cabot Lodge, New York: G. P. Putnams Sons, 1983, p. 222).
Alexander Hamilton, famous as the originator of The Federalist
papers and author of fifty-one of the essays, said: "For my own part, I sincerely esteem it a system, which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interest" (Essays on the Constitution of the United States, ed. Paul L. Ford, 1892, pp. 25152).
Charles Pinckney, a very active participant and author of the Pinckney Plan during the Constitutional Convention, said: "When the great work was done and published, I was struck with amazement. Nothing less than the superintending Hand of Providence."
Those and other similar statements from the men who wrote the Constitution makes the Constitution just as important to me as the Ten Commandments.
J. Reuben Clark, a member of the First Presidency under three prophets, stated "To me...that statement of the Lord "I have established the Constitution of this land," puts the Constitution of the United States in the position in which it would be if it were written in this book of Doctrine and Covenants itself. This makes the Constitution the word of the Lord to us."
