The Constitution will hang by a thread

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know the quote and source I’ve often heard that in the last days the Constitution of the US will hang by a thread and apostles will need to lead the saints in times of chaos?

I can’t remember it or the context around what I’ve heard.

Anyone able to help?

[Anonymous]

I found this:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1976/06/i-have-a-question/did-joseph-smith-say-that-the-constitution-would-hang-by-a-thread-and-that-the-elders-would-save-it?lang=eng

[Anonymous]

Good link, MM.

I think this prophecy became known as the “white Horse Prophecy” if I’m googling stuff right.

I wondered about the time frame…and it of course has none.

The ensign article was good.

One quote from it:

Quote:

Our commission to save the Constitution is, like salvation, a continuing task, and Church leaders have pointed out the tools available: analysis of constitutional principles, personal study of the history of our nation, reading the Constitution to children at home and in schools, teaching them self-sacrifice—the principle that makes freedom possible—teaching them their obligations as mature citizens, recognizing and resisting ideologies that threaten constitutional principles, and developing loyalty to principle rather than to men or parties.

Reading the Constitution to children at home???? Hm. Seems like a stretch there. Haha.

But I agree with the principles. We should all be looking out for and defending the cause of truth. Just that we will probably always fear it’s a thread away from crashing to the ground…and maybe that sensationalized fear is a bit grand-standing.

But probably felt by generations and generations…over and over again.

[Anonymous]

I think Joeseph Smith said this? Or I could be wrong. I just remember it was used as a political tool by Ultra Conservative members of the church when Barry was President.

[Anonymous]

This is another of the many things our current leadership just doesn’t talk about. For the vast majority of those things (probably all) I have the mindset of “let it go.” I do believe the church is on a theme of back to basics and that’s one of those things that isn’t really a basic.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

Does anyone know the quote and source I’ve often heard that in the last days the Constitution of the US will hang by a thread and apostles will need to lead the saints in times of chaos?

Heber13 wrote:

I think this prophecy became known as the “white Horse Prophecy” if I’m googling stuff right.

It’s a can of worms, speculative worms. There are second hand references to the constitution hanging by a thread and there is a third hand account called the White Horse Prophecy (WHP) that came much later.

The WHP does mention the constitution hanging by a thread but the prophecy is mostly about Joseph Smith predicting that the saints would move to the Rocky Mountains, prosper there, and that the outside world would become so wicked that people would flock to the Rocky Mountains for safety.

The WHP was written in a diary in 1902. If you’re the skeptical type it wouldn’t be too much of a leap to say that the WHP capitalized on the fact that the saints had already settled among the Rocky Mountains at the time the prophecy was written and that it incorporated existing oral traditions about the constitution hanging by a thread and being saved by the elders/church.

For what it’s worth, Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie were skeptics… staunch skeptics.

In short, the comment about the constitution and the WHP are two separate things.

Since it’s an oral tradition, providing context for the comments about the constitution is guesswork. Still, I think we can make educated guesses relating to the context. The saints felt persecuted, they felt that they were robbed of justice by the U.S. government. Joseph often perused legal channels to address perceived injustices and those petitions never yielded fruit. Joseph also decided to run for the office of president, perhaps in part to ensure the saints could get a fair shake at justice.

Provided that context, I wouldn’t find it at all surprising that JS’s rhetoric included talk of the constitution failing, as it had failed to provide the saints with the justice they felt they were owed, and that the elders of the church would save it, in the form of Joseph Smith becoming president and later addressing the injustices.

If anything, I think the comments about the constitution hanging by a thread may have been a part of a reactionary stump speech than something that predicted events in our day.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

If anything, I think the comments about the constitution hanging by a thread may have been a part of a reactionary stump speech than something that predicted events in our day.

I’m at work ( 😮 ) so I don’t have the reference right in front of me (and may not have time to hunt for immediately this week), but one of the Givens books (either Wrestling the Angel or Feeding the Flock) does make the assertion that Joseph Smith comments about the Constitution hanging by a thread and being saved by the church were directly related to the failure of the US government to protect the saints and/or prosecute the offenders in Missouri. Sort of like “You just wait and see, someday you’re going to be in real trouble and it’ll be us who saves your sorry butts.”

[Author]

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