Politics & Power Quote by Orson Pratt

A chill certainty runs through Pratt's sentence: not just that God should rule, but that any other arrangement is, by definition, salvage work at best. Calling the "kingdom of God" a theocracy is less a description than a claim of jurisdiction. It recasts politics as a branch of soteriology, where the right constitution is the one that "redeem[s] and save[s] mankind". Once government becomes a tool of salvation, disagreement stops being a civic nuisance and starts reading like spiritual peril.

The real engine here is the move from theology to pedagogy. "Necessary that every soul should be rightly and thoroughly instructed" sounds pastoral, even democratic - everyone gets the memo. But it's also an argument for authority over conscience: if salvation hinges on correct understanding of this political-theological order, then instruction isn't optional and pluralism looks like negligence. "Rightly" does a lot of work, implying not merely education but an authorized interpretation, a correct line, a curriculum with borders.

Context matters. Pratt, a major early Latter-day Saint thinker, wrote in a 19th-century America that treated "theocracy" as both a slur and a fear, especially as Mormon settlements in the West pursued communal governance under prophetic leadership. The language reads like an internal brief as much as a public defense: it tells believers that the church's political ambitions are not side quests but the main narrative of human rescue. It's rhetorical judo - take the accusation of theocracy and turn it into the only honest plan for civilization.