Can Our Divided Nation Be Unified?

            America is as divided as it has ever been other than during the Civil War. It was Abraham Lincoln who said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” but he was quoting Jesus Christ  who said, “And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:25). Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord said, “I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:27).

            Through this short statement, the Lord revealed the source of division. “If ye are not one ye are not mine” could just as easily be written, “Ye are not mine if ye are not one.” When He speaks of being “one,” He speaks of unity. If unity comes from God, then division comes from the enemy of God – even Satan. Division comes from evil desires, words, and actions.

            It seems that Americans have always been divided. This site says that “significant divisions existed in America during the Revolution.” However, the Patriots were more unified than the Loyalists. A greater percentage of the population appeared to be actively involved in the Patriot cause. The author quotes “historian Robert Calhoon [who] wrote that probably 15 to 20% of adult white males remained loyal to Britain, and that 40-45% of the free population, ‘at most no more than a bare majority’ actively supported the Patriots.” Tens of thousands of Loyalists fled the colonies at the end of the Revolutionary War.

            This information begs the question, “Were the States equally divided over the slavery issue?” It seems that most of the Founding Fathers understood that the establishment of slavery would have to go for all men to be equal. This site indicates that slavery was condemned in a draft of the Declaration of Independence.

What isn’t widely known, however, is that Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, in an early version of the Declaration, drafted a 168-word passage that condemned slavery as one of the many evils foisted upon the colonies by the British crown. The passage was cut from the final wording.

            According to this site, there was substantial debate in the Constitutional Convention on or about August 22, 1886, about slavery. Many of the delegates were opposed to slavery, but most of them understood that the southern states would not support a union if slavery was abolished. After much debate, members of the Convention made a compromise, which caused big problems a few years later and still causes problems today. They agreed that the Constitution would prohibit any restrictions on the importation of slaves for 20 years, but they could not end slavery and still have a union.

            Today our nation is unified in condemning the institution of slavery. We agree that no human being should ever be enslaved by another, and we agree that slavery is a black mark in the history of America. However, there is much discussion and disagreement as to what we should do about the issue of slavery to allow our nation to heal. This site has an article about the chasm in our nation and suggests that we turn to the same sources that Abraham Lincoln used – the Founding Fathers.

Lucas Morel, a professor of politics at Washington and Lee University and author of the new book “Lincoln and the American Founding,” makes the case that, for President Lincoln, human equality was the central idea of the regime created by the Founders.

“Slavery was not created on July 4, 1776. It was refuted on that date – the grand anti-slavery statement of a people, the first time in human history that a people decided to form a government on the basis of equality,” Morel said, adding:

“They didn’t wait to get rid of slavery to start the machinery of self-government that they believed in time would get rid of it.

“As Lincoln put it, ‘Put it on the course of ultimate extinction.’

What did Lincoln learn from the Founders about the best peaceful, political way of weaning ourselves off of that awful institution, Morel asked. “Every Founder to a man believed that slavery was wrong. Not wrong for him – wrong for everyone.”

            Recognizing that the Founders understood that America would “have to get rid of slavery,” they still signed the Constitution to create the Union. According to the author, we have a problem today because “far too few Americans understand why the Founders created the nation they did.” They created a nation “in which men and women would not be ruled by the whims of a monarch, but by their own consent.” In addition, too few Americans today understand “how truly revolutionary it was to build a nation based on an ideal of equality.”

            It is this “lack of knowledge about the founding” that opens that way for revisionist histories. Works such as Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and the 1619 Project sponsored by The New York Times bring greater division to our nation with “their partisan propaganda.” Such things cause people to lose faith in American principles, such as the rule of law. “Without this foundation, I believe our diversity, which we make a lot of, won’t be a benefit to us, but put us on the path to further division, conflict, and chaos.”

            Since “The United States remains the best place of hope, opportunity, and freedom,” we should do as Lincoln did. We should study the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for guidance and inspiration needed to work our way through this current crisis. Our nation was created on the ideal that “all men are created equal,” and we can move further in that direction if we will work together as one.

Lincoln also turned to God for guidance, and we should bring Him into the solution. However, we must first understand, “If ye are not one, ye are not mine.” Our Heavenly Father is a God of unity. If we are to heal the divisions in our nation, we must throw off the yoke of Satan, who wants us to be divided and miserable. We must turn to God if we truly desire unity.