Joseph Smith Jr. Quotes
We have not enjoyed unmolested those rights which the constitution of the U.S.A. and our Charters grant.
Smith, Joseph. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Vol. 6, Deseret News, 1912, p. 286.
Many New Yorkers and others felt that since the attack on the World Trade Center was made in the name of Islam, the mosque and commuity center should be built in another location further from Ground Zero. Ellison was debating someone who argued that the Mosque should not be built so that sensitivity can be shown for those New Yorkers who lost relatives and friends in the attack of September 11. Rather than insist on their Constitutional rights, the Muslim leadership of the project, moved the location somewhat further away from Ground Zero.
Note the use of the phrase “against the government.” One of the unique aspects of the American Constitution and The Bill of Rights is that the government is considered a potential and even probable infringer on the liberties of the people. It is almost as though the government was the potential enemy. Modern libertarians state this very explicitly and it is ever present in the views of both the right and left wings of American politics. Most centrists recoil at the thought that some citizens see the government as the enemy, but even in America there have been times where the government has infringed on the rights of citizens only to have the courts or future administrations and Congresses correct the error.
See {587703} for a similar statement by a Supreme Court Justice.
This is probably the first known use of the Bill of Rights phrase in the English language. For the earliest American use, see Edward Rutledge.
See George Mason for the contrary view. {606646}
Hamilton acknowledged that the major public objection to the new U. S. Constitution was its lack of a Bill of Rights, which Hamilton argued was unnecessary.
Joseph Smith, Jr. was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was twenty-four, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death fourteen years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religious culture that continues to the present.
