Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law - to do your business by the voice of the people.
And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land. - Mosiah 29:26-27
In the April 1976 general conference, President Marion G. Romney, then second counselor in the First Presidency, recounted the incident recorded in 1 Samuel of the Israelites desiring a king instead of government by judges. "This grieved Samuel, and the Lord said to him, `Hearken unto the voice of the people . . . for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.' (1 Sam. 8:7.)
"Israel thus surrendered the form of free government God had given them. They got their king all right, and a few decades later they were taken captive into slavery. Slavery entered into by one's own choice is no less slavery than that imposed upon him by external force."
