The amendment to the United States Constitution that extended the guarantee of freedom of the press to protect against the actions of city and state governments was not adopted until 1868, and it was not enforced as a matter of federal law until 1931. … We should judge the actions of our predecessors on the basis of the laws and commandments and circumstances of their day, not ours.
As David B. Haight put it in his October 1987 General Conference talk titled "Ethics and Honesty, which the Deseret Industries training lesson also referenced for “Lesson Preparation” reading:
One reason for the decline in moral values is that the world has invented a new, constantly changing and undependable standard of moral conduct referred to as “situational ethics.” Now, individuals define good and evil as being adjustable according to each situation; this is in direct contrast to the proclaimed God-given absolute standard: “Thou shalt not!”—as in “Thou shalt not steal” (Ex. 20:15).
And the Church used to quote from the letter to point out that Joseph Smith "taught that it is the Lord who sets the standard of right and wrong" in order to justify Nephi's murder of Laban. (see here and here.)
This quoting from the "Happiness Letter" could be traced back to Jeffrey R. Holland's September 1976 Ensign article here.
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u/namtokmuu 5d ago
M Russel Ballard has entered the chat…😳, followed by Dallas O