Love, The Law and Religious Liberty

General Counsel for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and emeritus general authority, Elder Lance B. Wickman has received the Alexander W. Doniphan Community Service Award.

The award is named for Doniphan, Brigadier General of the Clay County Missouri Militia in 1838, who refused to execute Joseph Smith, founder of the Church, along with his brother Hyrum and five other Church leaders. Doniphan is remembered for his role in education, jurisprudence, statesmanship, patriotism in defense of country, and success in business and is very much revered in Missouri with counties, schools and highways named after him.

Elder Wickman said he is honored to receive the award but it is an, “even greater honor…to have my name mentioned in the same sentence with his (Doniphan).” Elder Wickman was cited for his study of and respect for the law as well as his great military service.

“The debt owed by Latter-day Saints to Alexander W. (or “Will”) Doniphan—as he was known to his associates—is virtually immeasurable,” explained Elder Wickman. “But for his courageous stand in the public square at Far West on a dark October day in 1831, the Prophet Joseph Smith would have been martyred six years earlier than he was.”

Joseph Smith and his associates were locked up in Liberty Jail for several months. Elder Wickman remarked, “If ever there was an oxymoron, “Liberty Jail” has got to be it!  Cold, filthy, cramped, dark, destitute of even the rudest implements of civilization, its guards vile and uncouth—in all outward respects that harsh cell was cruel and forbidding; its name—“Liberty”—about as inapt as any imaginable. But when considered in light of what shone forth from the depths of its privations, “Liberty” could not be a more appropriate name.”

The annual awards dinner and Elder Wickman’s speech took place on the Kansas City campus of the University of Missouri on Friday, 14 February 2014.