The United States Constitution: A Communications Framework for Safeguarding Our National Charter and Religious Freedom

Ahmad S. Corbitt, General Authority Seventy
South Carolina Religious Freedom Conference – Jan 15, 2025
Church Newsroom
US Constitution

Today, I will share a framework for communicating about the U.S. Constitution and religious freedom that hopefully helps us take the temperature down in our nation, unify across cultures and, at the same time, lift our national charter to its rightful place in the hearts and minds of all who benefit from it.

Why a communications framework? While there are many threats to the U.S. Constitution, I believe much of the current confusion and conflict surrounding it is rhetorical. In my view, two of the greatest modern vulnerabilities of the U.S. Constitution, and therefore the religious freedom it secures, are first: past misapplications and abuses of the Constitution and injustices committed in the name of it and second: we, as a society, don’t know how to credibly talk about the Constitution in a way that extols its inspired nature and uniquely enduring virtues and values, on the one hand, while addressing the hard history associated with it, on the other hand. For the sake of the Constitution, itself, we must learn to do both. Perhaps it is my combined public communications and legal backgrounds that convince me our national charter has a PR problem which could have troubling legal ramifications, including for religious liberty.

Before proposing a specific communications framework for the U.S. Constitution, let me share more background, including a brief story, that show the need for such a framework. As many of you know, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints occasionally sponsors or collaborates on interfaith activities such as this one. Some time ago, I was honored to keynote such an event. Following the teachings of Jesus Christ, emphasized by the apostles of our church, I suggested we, the various religious leaders, all be peacemakers, focus more on our commonalities than our differences, and coalesce around the U.S. Constitution, especially its protections of religious freedom. After the event, I had the pleasure of speaking with a group of Black American religious leaders whom I sought out for specific feedback. I was not surprised that they felt some discomfort with the idea of uniting around the Constitution. But I was surprised by how visceral and reflexive their reaction was to the very phrase, itself, “United States Constitution.” They distrusted it. Asked why, they said the Constitution could potentially be used to “put us back in that place” in the United States. I, at once, understood them and yet did not relate at all.

Part of why I understood my new friends was because I was born to parents who had recently begun exploring the Nation of Islam. Their interest was so intense they named their newborn child, the third in our family, Ahmad Saleem Corbitt. 1 My parents, born toward the early 1900s, also suffered indignities of racial discrimination, as had I. Philadelphia’s “race riots” of the sixties were very near the housing projects we lived in. With this background, it is no surprise I was exposed as a child and youth to resentment for unconstitutional injustices.

Part of why I did not relate to my new friends’ distrust of the U.S. Constitution is my fairly extensive legal practice as a guardian of its principles. I had sworn an oath to defend and uphold the United States Constitution as inviolate as an officer of the court in the very state in which it was framed, as well as New Jersey and New York. As a practitioner of criminal defense law, I vigorously defended U.S. Constitutional rights, protections and privileges, including some with religious freedom implications, thousands of times. None of us could imagine a society where government could on a whim search our homes or prosecute us for political reasons. Imagine not having the right to the “Assistance of Counsel” 2 or to vote or protest actions taken by government or march in support of them. –To say nothing of the right to choose or exercise our own religion – or no religion – or to become a pastor, imam, rabbi, or missionary. 3 I shared these thoughts with my new friends. They recognized they were unfairly judging the Constitution because they were looking at it one-dimensionally. Indeed, they loved these Constitutional protections and safeguards. We all do.

An ever-increasing number of equally smart, caring Americans from a variety of cultural backgrounds seem caught in a fashionable but destructive zero-sum view of the U.S. Constitution. At one extreme, some are calling for its abandonment as an irredeemably oppressive – some say racist – legal scheme to perpetually harm others, past and present. Their loyalty to justice and various historically oppressed peoples is admirable but they lose credibility. They either sound disloyal to their country or they don’t know how to talk in a balanced, forward-looking way about negative history associated with the Constitution or its obvious benefits, which they also enjoy. At the polar opposite end, others see everything about the U.S. Constitution, including its history, as perfect and flawless. Their loyalty to the country and our national charter is similarly commendable. But they, too, lose credibility and can alienate racial minorities and the next generation. Such alienated persons can misinterpret glowing, imbalanced references to the Constitution and attempts to strengthen it as secretly approving past abuses or wanting to return to its more exclusive application. This explains the allergic reactions of my new black friends at the interfaith event.

Meanwhile, Americans generally, including youth, are increasingly unsure how to talk or think about the U.S. Constitution. Our “one nation, under God, indivisible” increasingly becomes a house divided and “liberty and justice for all” – including religious liberty – grow correspondingly endangered, all of which can be perilous.


A suggested framework that hopefully facilitates honest dialogue and fosters greater unity

Well, what is this communications framework? It has been helpful to me to communicate about the U.S. Constitution not one- or two- dimensionally (zero-sum) but four-dimensionally. The four dimensions I have identified are: (1) the bundle of pure U.S. Founding principles or ideals, themselves. I will call them “Constitutional” even though they include principles contained in the earlier Declaration of Independence and the subsequent Bill of Rights, (2) the written articulation of these principles, especially the U.S. Constitution, itself, (3) initial and historic misapplications and abuses of the Constitution, 4 and (4) the present fruits and broad enjoyments of the Constitution or what it has ultimately become because of its correct, adjusted and just application over time. First dimension principles and ideals are pure and clearly inspired. They include the God-given blessings of liberty for all the law-abiding, equality and justice before the law, domestic tranquility and ever-increasing national unity through application of and coalescence around these principles. This dimension was and is so powerful that it permeated the second dimension – the written Constitution, itself – survived third dimension misapplications and abuses, and produced the very protective and far-reaching fourth dimension. It has indisputably endowed the whole world with constitutional governments and unprecedented human freedom. 5

Tension and division begin to arise in relation to the second dimension, the written articulation of these pure principles, the

Constitution itself. I believe it, too, is profoundly inspired. However, measured against the first dimension in terms of purity, it must be regarded – and it is widely recognized – as less pristine, given its accommodations of human slavery. I think I understand as well as anyone that the nation would have had no Constitution without the accommodation of slavery. However, I believe this accommodation is often overstated. The profound inspiration and wisdom I see in the Constitution, itself, includes how the Framers constructed it. They gave it the literary ability to accommodate present culture in any age. Therefore, in my view, it was more the culture of the time accommodating slavery and the Constitution accommodating the culture of the time, as it does today. More importantly, those not of my faith should note Latter-day Saints believe that God, Himself, in the same revelation, affirmed that He established the United States Constitution and condemned slavery. He revealed to Joseph Smith, the first president of our church, “it is not right that any man (meaning anyone) should be in bondage one to another. And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land….” 6 Importantly, He declared the Constitution “should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles.” 7 These include the pure principles of the first dimension written by inspiration into the second dimension. 8 Moreover, in a landmark discourse about the U.S. Constitution in a worldwide general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Dallin H. Oaks, second ranking leader of the church, called to full-time Church service from an illustrious legal career, affirmed this same divine condemnation of slavery as he emphasized the divinely inspired nature of the U.S. Constitution. 9

The third dimension is the one that seems to attract the most negative attention and provide the most fodder for opposing the Constitution. Because misapplications and abuses of the U.S. Constitution have been so egregious and pervasive throughout American history, the third dimension tends to eclipse the first and second dimensions for some. In extreme cases, critics of the U.S. Constitution over focus on this third dimension to the exclusion or passing mention of the first or second dimensions and even the positive, correct and inspiring applications of the Constitution that have resulted in its fourth dimension. According to noted George Washington University law professor, Jonathan Turley, such critics include an increasing number of scholars.1 10 Ironically, these critics undeniably enjoy fourth dimension rights, privileges and broadly applied protections of the U.S. Constitution secured by its proper application.

I will now (A) discuss some of the unconstitutional abuses experienced by early leaders and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how the Church responded. I will then (B) show how the four dimensions just mentioned enabled the Church to properly and effectively respond as it did. Finally, I will (C) show how this four-part framework might help all Americans regardless of background or history of persecution coalesce around the U.S. Constitution such that it fulfills its ongoing purpose to form a more perfect union.


Some unconstitutional abuses experienced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how the Church responded

Despite early Latter-day Saint beliefs that God envisioned a true land of liberty for all His children, these members of our church suffered widespread unconstitutional abuses in virtually every region of the country. From New York to Pennsylvania to Ohio to Missouri the Saints were persecuted or driven. In 1838, the governor of Missouri infamously issued an executive order that Latter-day Saints “must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state.” 11 Regarding this unconstitutional treatment in Missouri, President Oaks observed, “Partly this was because of their opposition to the human slavery then existing in the United States.” 12 The Saints were then driven to Illinois and ultimately to the Mountain West where they were persecuted by the United States government.

Few felt the sting of unconstitutional abuses and injustice more pointedly than the first president of our church, Joseph Smith. Portions of his official condemnation of these abuses and abusers sound like they could have been leveled by any deeply oppressed people in the country at the time. He published these deeds, “that the whole nation may be left without excuse … under the damning hand of murder, tyranny, and oppression … It is an iron yoke, … they are the very handcuffs, and chains, and shackles, and fetters of hell….” 13 “An armed mob … of from 150 to 200” men in Illinois 14 ultimately murdered in cold blood this great Enoch of our modern era, the prophetic instrument through whom we believe God restored the original Christian church. The same mob killed his brother, Hyrum, the Patriarch of the Church, while the two were unjustly jailed in state custody.


How this four-dimension framework explains the Church’s effective response to unconstitutional abuses and how it might help other groups in the United States embrace the U.S. Constitution more firmly

This four-dimensional framework for communicating about the U.S. Constitution seems to explain how the Latter-day Saints effectively embraced the U.S. Constitution and how they benefitted from it consistently. As I share how the Church’s response can be an example for all minority or persecuted groups, I am not suggesting it is the only model or even the best.

First, throughout the persecution, Church leaders and members continually extolled (1) the bundle of pure U.S. Constitution principles – the essence of the Constitution – as sourced by God. In dedicating the Church’s first temple, its most sacred structure, Joseph Smith prayed, “May those principles, which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever.” 15 He offered this prayer while he and his people were in the throes of persecution just over two months after James Madison’s death.

The Saints’ view of the Constitution’s principles as pure and inspired by God (the first dimension) enabled them to see that the written Constitution itself was also inspired though, again, less pristine than its essential ideals (the second dimension). Joseph Smith records a revelation from God that seems to acknowledge this distinction: “I, the Lord, justify you and your brethren in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land; And as pertaining to law of man,” the Lord continued, “whatsoever is more or less than this, cometh of evil.” 16 I hasten to add that, importantly, the impurities of the Constitution’s original articulation were corrected by what President Oaks called, “inspired amendments, such as those abolishing slavery and giving women the right to vote.” 17 I want to be careful not to overstate this distinction. I know of no American group that more highly praises the U.S. Constitution than the Latter-day Saints and no manner to more highly do so than to proclaim it was endorsed by God through revelation.

What the early Saints demonstrated especially well, in my view, was embrace of the first and second dimensions of the Constitution – its pure principles and its written form – while detaching them from the troublesome third dimension, others’ misapplications and abuses of the Constitution. Perhaps no one statement demonstrates this better than that of John Taylor, who would become the third president of the Church. Himself “wounded in a savage manner” 18 while in official custody with Joseph and Hyrum Smith, John Taylor lamented “the broken faith of the State (of Illinois)….” Obviously grieving for the loss of the Smiths, he then makes this bold, deeply symbolic statement: “Their innocent blood on the banner of liberty, and on the magna charta of the United States, is an ambassador for the religion of Jesus Christ…” 19 In my view, the Latter-day Saints’ proper contextualization of the first three dimensions of the U.S. Constitution led to the fourth for us and enabled our present and enduring embrace of Constitution.

Imagine if every group that has experienced persecution in the United States saw the Constitution in this remarkably positive and multi-dimensional way! All Americans would not only uphold, defend and embrace the U.S. Constitution, their shared veneration of its ideals and their common histories of its abuses would naturally lead them – and us all – to that increasingly more perfect union. The good news is many have and do! Given slavery is the greatest moral challenge to the U.S. Constitution and the one most cited in opposition to that document, let’s look briefly at three examples from the struggle of Blacks in United States history. Famed Black abolitionist, leader and thinker, Frederick Douglass, born in 1818, just thirty years after the U.S. Constitution’s ratification, seemed to affirm both the first and second dimensions of the U.S. Constitution in 1852. Of the U.S. Constitution’s first dimension, he said the “fathers” secured “saving principles” in the Founding documents. Regarding its second dimension, he declared, “the Constitution of the United States, standing alone and construed only in the light of its letter … is not a pro-slavery instrument.” Capitalizing each word, he called the U.S. Constitution “a Glorious Liberty Document!” 20

In the early Twentieth Century, Mary McLeod Bethune, a Black, educator in Florida, stated, “What does the Negro want? His answer is very simple. He wants only what all other Americans want. He wants opportunity to make real what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights say…. [the second dimension] While he knows these ideals [the first dimension] are open to no man completely, he wants only his equal chance to obtain them.” 21 More recently, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught the nation this great metaphor during the famed march on Washington in 1963: “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution [the second dimension] and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, Black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness [the first dimension]....” 22

Like the Latter-day Saints, these Black leaders, from various eras in our nation’s history, all extolled the U.S. Constitution in the face of dark third dimension horrors for their people. So did many of their Black contemporaries. As with the Latter-day Saints, they knew not to give up on the most liberating document on earth simply because it wasn’t ideally applied to them in their time. Their belief in and firm embrace of the first and second dimensions of the Constitution helped them endure, change and progress beyond third dimension abuses and injustices. Although the degree of oppression was obviously not the same, members of both groups toiled, travailed, sweat, cried, bled and even made the ultimate sacrifice for the proper and just application of the U.S. Constitution they embraced. The obvious question for us today in the fourth dimension – as Latter-day Saints, as Blacks, as members of any group of Americans – is, are we to now contradict them?! Are we to make counter arguments that effectively say they were wrong in embracing the Constitution, that their sacrifices were in vain – “we don’t want the Constitution or the religious freedom you successfully struggled for after all!” – and to make such arguments from our positions of power and privilege, enabled and secured by the very Constitution they upheld?


Remembering past abuses

Is there value in remembering the third dimension? Of course, one benefit of remembering such abuses is to prevent them in the present and future. While inspired of God, our constitutional democratic republic has no perfect people. As James Madison, regarded as the father of the Constitution, famously said, “If men were angels no government would be necessary.” 23 Latter-day Saints, like other groups who have suffered oppression in the United States, do remember darker days. Perhaps it will not always be so, but to this day, even our sacred Latter-day Saint hymns contain reminders that, “At the hands of foul oppressors we’ve born and suffered long!” and hope for a time “When all that was promised the saints will be given and none will molest them from morn until ev’n(.)” 24 But our purpose in remembering is to avoid repeating bad history as we move forward in faith and increased unity. I, personally, have concerns about unduly negative portrayals of us in entertainment and news media that seem to be increasing.

Finally, this four-dimensional framework for communicating about the U.S. Constitution also helps us move toward greater unity in how we resolve issues in our nation, including contentious ones. As Americans contextualize the third dimension by focusing more on the first, second and fourth dimensions, we develop a clearer vision of how to unite. We are more likely to truthfully acknowledge third dimension abuses and injustices are now relatively rare. These national course corrections are, ironically, thanks to the United States Constitution. We are also more likely to develop what my General Authority Seventy colleague, Elder Matthew S. Holland, called “civic charity” or even “bonds of affection” for one another. 25 In this spirit, we increasingly see the U.S. Constitution as encouraging, even requiring, communication and compromise. Noted Professor Cass Sunstein observed the Constitution, “creates the conditions for adversarial collaboration.” 26 President Oaks stated in his address mentioned earlier that we should “be positive about this nation’s future.” He counseled, “On contested issues, we should seek to moderate and unify.” 27 These very quotes were cited favorably by Jonathan Rauch of The Brookings Institution. Pressing the case for increased unity in the interest of preserving the American democracy, Rauch noted, “The Latter-day Saints’ example allows us to make some helpful and hopeful observations which are pertinent to Christians and liberal democrats.” Describing himself as “an atheistic homosexual Jew,” and knowing Latter-day Saint theology and policy well, Rauch concluded, “…the LGBT community, and secular Americans more generally, have a lot to learn from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a diverse country full of moral disagreement,” he said, then quoting President Oaks, “‘patience, negotiation, and mutual accommodation’ is a win-win proposition.” 28 This healthy approach to civic engagement can never be achieved with a myopic focus on the third dimension outside the unifying context of the first, second and fourth dimensions. This four-dimensional communications framework enables us all to avoid throwing out the U.S. Constitution baby with the dirty abuse and misapplication bathwater. It is a prism through which not just to see our constitutional democratic republic but to keep it.

  1. My older brother and sister were named Anthony and Gisele.

  2. I find significant what the Framers capitalized in the Sixth Amendment guarantee that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence [sic].” (Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution).

  3. These are basic rights and privileges afforded by the “due process of law” clause of the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment mirrors this “due process” language and applies these principles to all government activity within the states, in addition to the federal government.

  4. This has been the most egregious aspect of the U.S. Constitution in our nation’s history. It is the most difficult for Black Americans to reconcile with the Constitution’s goodness and protections and to move beyond. The abuse of the U.S. Constitution versus its bundle of principles and their proper purpose, function and application will be discussed throughout this essay.

  5. Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution, Dallin H. Oaks, October 2020. “The United States Constitution is the oldest written national constitution still in use. It has served Americans well, enhancing freedom and prosperity during the changing conditions of more than 200 years. Frequently copied, it has become the United States’ most important export. After two centuries, every nation in the world except six have adopted written constitutions, and the United States Constitution was a model for all of them. Consequently, if we abandon or weaken its fundamental principles, we betray our own national ideals and we also weaken our global neighbors.” The Fundamentals of Our Constitutions, Dallin H. Oaks, 2010; see, also, A Critic at Large, When Constitutions Took Over the World, By Jill Lepore, March 22, 2021. See endnote 9 and its leading paragraph for additional biographical information about President Oaks.

  6. Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter “Doctrine and Covenants”)101:79-80, emphasis added.

  7. Ibid.101:77, emphasis added. Despite the prevailing notion that Black people (enslaved or free) were not contemplated within the U.S. Constitution’s meaning (see Dred Scott vs. Sanford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)), this 1833 revelation to Joseph Smith firmly establishes God’s intention that the Constitution was to apply to and liberate Black people and “all flesh.” But by using this latter phrase and putting no limit on it, the Lord extends this protection to humanity throughout the earth and for the remainder of the world’s history.

  8. The Lord’s establishing the U.S. Constitution and at the same time condemning slavery seems to support the idea that, again, He inspired the literary construction of the Constitution to accommodate the eventual cultural shift away from slavery – a word the document never uses – and racial discrimination toward His intended purpose for the Constitution. His inspiration was ultimately successful.

  9. Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution, Dallin H. Oaks, October 2020, citing Doctrine and Covenants 101:79. President Oaks served as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, as a lawyer in private practice, as a law professor and law school administrator, as a university president, and as an associate justice of the Utah Supreme Court.

  10. See, The Left’s Assault on the Constitution, Jonathan Turley, Wall Street Journal Op-ed, September 12, 2024

  11. To Heal the World, Ronald A. Rasband, April 2022.

  12. Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution, Dallin H. Oaks, October 2020

  13. Doctrine and Covenants 123:3-10.

  14. Doctrine and Covenants 135:1-7. In his book, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness, Oxford University Press, University of Utah professor of history, W. Paul Reeve, generally speaking, discusses the racializing of early Latter-day Saints by fellow Christians and Americans. Throughout the book, Reeve explains how some even went so far as to characterize “Mormons” as non-White and, in some cases, related them to “negroes” to unconstitutionally mistreat them under American law.

  15. Doctrine and Covenants 109:54-57

  16. Doctrine and Covenants 98:6-7, emphasis added. The fact that the written U.S. Constitution did not initially achieve the purpose for which God intended it, i.e. to liberate “all flesh,” obviously means it was less pure than its essential principles and ideals He inspired, including liberty (see endnote 6-8.)

  17. Our Divinely Inspired United States Constitution, Dallin H. Oaks, October 2020, p.106, emphasis added. President Oaks also stated, “Our belief that the United States Constitution was divinely inspired does not mean that divine revelation dictated every word and phrase, such as the provisions allocating the number of representatives from each state or the minimum age of each. (See United States Constitution, article 1, section 2.) The Constitution was not “a fully grown document,” said President J. Reuben Clark. “On the contrary,” he explained, “we believe it must grow and develop to meet the changing needs of an advancing world.” (J. Reuben Clark Jr., “Constitutional Government: Our Birthright Threatened,” Vital Speeches of the Day, Jan. 1, 1939, 177, quoted in Martin B. Hickman, “J. Reuben Clark, Jr.: The Constitution and the Great Fundamentals,” in Ray C. Hillam, ed., By the Hands of Wise Men: Essays on the U.S. Constitution (1979), 53. Brigham Young held a similar developmental view of the Constitution, teaching that the framers “laid the foundation, and it was for aftergenerations to rear the superstructure upon it” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [1954], 359).) For example, inspired amendments abolished slavery and gave women the right to vote. However, we do not see inspiration in every Supreme Court decision interpreting the Constitution.”

  18. Doctrine and Covenants 135:2.

  19. Doctrine and Covenants 135:1-7.

  20. Oration delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, by Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 (better known as “What, to the slave, is your Fourth of July?”); spelling and punctuation modernized.

  21. Mary McLeod Bethune, “Certain Unalienable Rights." From “What the Negro Wants” (1944), edited by Rayford W. Logan, emphasis added.

  22. “I Have A Dream” speech, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., March On Washington, August 28, 1963.

  23. Federalist Paper 51.

  24. For the Strength of the Hills, hymn #35 and Now Let Us Rejoice, hymn #3, respectively, Hymnbook of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

  25. Bonds of Affection: Civic Charity and the Making of America, Matthew S. Holland

  26. Cass R. Sunstein, The Nobel Winner Who Liked to Collaborate With His Adversaries, April 1, 2024 | Opinion | Guest Essay

  27. Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution, Dallin H. Oaks, October 2020.

  28. Thick Christianity: Faith in Pluralism, (Lecture 3) Jonathan Rauch, University of Virginia, September 27, 2023, emphasis added.