“There Shall Be No Kings Upon the Land”

“It is remarkable that so few attempts have been made to establish thrones in America. Perhaps the most substantial barrier has been the Monroe Doctrine, although, there has, for the most part, been so little real force behind that ‘doctrine’ that its very weakness has invited more than one European monarch to attempt to ’smash it.’ It defied all the world to attempt to set up any authority of their own, or to interfere with any of the independent governments then existing in North or South America….In a word the real meaning of the Monroe Doctrine is, ‘Hands off’ and that too, to all the world….One could imagine that the Book of Mormon prophet might have been standing at the elbow of President Monroe when he signed the document as it was handed to him by the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. For the Monroe Doctrine is nothing more than the Book of Mormon prophecy put in the form of a state paper. It has been tested and tried. It has been called the ’most magnificent bluff in history, and so far the most successful.’ At any rate, it has stood. It has been affirmed and re-affirmed by President after President until it is now upheld and proclaimed as with the voice of a hundred millions of people.” (Nephi Lowell Morris, Prophecies of Joseph Smith and Their Fulfillment, pp. 136-138 as taken from Latter-day Commentary on the Book of Mormon compiled by K. Douglas Bassett, p. 125)