From Here to Forever

Document of Freedom

The American Declaration of Independence declared: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Constitution guarantees the inviolability of conscience: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” HF 184.5

“The framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal principle that man's relation with his God is above human legislation, and his rights of conscience inalienable. ... It is an inborn principle which nothing can eradicate.”¹⁰ HF 185.1

The tidings spread through Europe of a land where every man might enjoy the fruit of his own labor and obey his conscience. Thousands flocked to the shores of the New World. In twenty years from the first landing at Plymouth (1620), as many thousand Pilgrims were settled in New England. HF 185.2

“They asked nothing from the soil but the reasonable returns of their own labor. ... They patiently endured the privations of the wilderness, watering the tree of liberty with their tears, and with the sweat of their brow, till it took deep root in the land.” HF 185.3