WILL YOU VOTE FOR A RELIGIOUS FRUITCAKE?

[Anti-Mormon]

prophet and the presidency: Mormonism and politics in Joseph Smith's
1844 Presidential campaign, The
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Summer 2000 by
Wood, Timothy L
The kingdom of God is at the defiance of all earthly laws and yet
breaks none.
- Joseph Smith, April 6, 1844 1
Resolved... that we ... discountenance every attempt to unite church
and state; and that we further believe the effort now being made by
Joseph Smith for political power and influence is not commendable in
the sight of God.
Resolved... that while we disapprobate malicious persecutions and
prosecutions, we hold that all church members are alike amenable to
the laws of the land: and that we further discountenance any chicanery
to screen them from the just demands of the same.
-Nauvoo Expositor, June 7, 1844 2
One of the most intriguing movements that sprang from the religious
fervor of early nineteenth century America was the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons. Throughout
its existence, the Mormon church has distinguished itself as one of
the fastest growing religious denominations in the United States. That
phenomenon was all the more surprising since in many ways the Mormon
church represented a radical departure from both mainstream American
culture and orthodox Christianity, while at the same time remaining a
continuation and adjustment of that culture and faith.
However, at no point in its early history did the Mormon church so
ambitiously attempt to influence the larger American society than in
the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith's 1844 presidential campaign. Smith
used his presidential platform to articulate a series of social ideals
developed since the founding of the LDS church in 1830. As a religious
leader, Smith harkened back to a day when the preponderance of
society's moral and religious authority resided within local
institutions, such as the church and an individual's immediate
community. Smith believed that the primary duty of the federal
government was to defend religious liberty and maintain an atmosphere
in the United States where such communities grew and thrived. However,
the shifts in doctrine that hit the LDS church during the early 1840s
introduced several new practices, including polygamy that disrupted
the social, political, and religious balance articulated in Smith's
campaign. The Mormon prophet's dramatic change of course reenergized
the church's enemies, leading him down a path that culminated in his
own murder in June,1844.
Most contemporary scholarship on Mormonism may be seen as falling
roughly within one of two schools of thought. The first was best
expressed in Fawn M. Brodie's 1945 biography No Man Knows My History:
The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet. Brodie's goal was first
and foremost to understand Joseph Smith the man through the social and
psychological forces that shaped his life. As Brodie herself put it:
"The source of his power lay not in his doctrine but in his person,
and the rare quality of his genius was due not to his reason but his
imagination. He was a myth-maker of prodigious talent. And after a
hundred years the myths he created are still an energizing force in
the lives of a million followers. The moving power of Mormonism was a
fable - one that few converts stopped to question, for its meaning
seemed profound and its inspiration was contagious."3 As a historian,
Brodie separated Smith's personal motives from his symbolic role
within the larger Mormon movement. Ultimately, Brodie concluded that
Smith was a brilliant con artist who came to believe in the delusion
that he himself had engineered, all the while presiding over a growing
community of faith motivated by values far different than his own.
The second approach to Mormon history is best represented by the LDS
historians Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton in their 1979 book,
The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints. In the
introduction to their work, Arrington and Bitton stated that: "Both
authors of the present work are believing and practicing members of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As such, we hope we
have been able to discern some features of Mormon history ... that
would elude the outside visitor.... At the same time ... we have
sought to understand as scholars of any faith or no faith would seek
to understand. But ... some matters can never by understood adequately
except from within."4 Unlike Brodie, Arrington and Bitton recognized
little discrepancy between the inner life and intentions of Smith and
the church he founded. Where Brodie painted a portrait of duplicity,
they saw unity of purpose. Consequently, Arrington and Bitton
described early Mormonism as a coherent whole, with the movement's
social, political, and religious ideas flowing seamlessly from Smith
to the average Saint.
Indeed, one does not have to be a Mormon to take the movement
seriously as a motivating force within the lives of many true
believers. Within the culture of the early Latter-day Saints, the life
and thought of Joseph Smith took on a life of its own, quite
independent of the Mormon founder's original intentions. The faith of
countless ordinary Mormon believers validated Smith's new religion as
a cultural force. The noted anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined
culture as "an historically transmitted pattern of meaning embodied in
symbols."5 In the nascent Mormon culture of the mid-nineteenth
century, Smith was such a symbol, and his teachings, whatever their
origin, provided that matrix of meaning. Thus, it is entirely possible
for scholars to examine the impact of Smith's life and thought within
the context of the larger Mormon culture, without speculating one way
or another on the inner religious experience of one individual.
In order to understand the Mormon culture from which Smith's 1844
campaign emerged, it is helpful to first have a general understanding
of Mormon theology, as well as the history behind that doctrine.
Joseph Smith, Jr. was born on December 23, 1805 in the small village
of Sharon, Vermont, although he spent most of his adolescent years in
rural Palmyra, New York. As a boy, young Joseph was very concerned
about matters religious, and spent much time reflecting upon the
differences and disputes between the rival evangelical sects then
competing for converts on the frontiers of New York during the Second
Great Awakening. Smith's first supernatural experience occurred when
he was between fourteen and sixteen years of age. Years later, Smith
recounted a vision in which God and Jesus Christ appeared to him in
bodily form, forgave his sins, condemned all existing Christian
denominations as corruptions of the true faith, and commanded the
young seeker to maintain his spiritual purity by joining no church.6
Joseph's next and most significant revelation took place a few years
later on September 21, 1823. In this instance, a celestial being known
as Moroni appeared to Smith and revealed the existence of a set of
golden plates buried in a nearby hill which contained the religious
records of an ancient (but now extinct) North American civilization.
With the help of a translating device identified as the Urim and
Thummim, part of the priestly vestments briefly mentioned in such Old
Testament passages as Exodus 28, Smith set about deciphering the
tablets. By 1829 Smith completed the translation of the mysterious
tablets and The Book of Mormon went to press.
Within the pages of The Book of Mormon, Smith recounted the epic
struggle of the Hebrew prophet Lehi and his descendants for nearly one-
thousand years. Warned in a vision to flee the impending destruction
of Jerusalem, Lehi and his family escaped the city just before it was
overrun by the Babylonian forces of King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C.
Led by God to seek out a new promised land, Lehi, along with his sons
Laman and Nephi, constructed a ship and undertook a perilous voyage
which would eventually lead them to North America (I Nephi). Over the
course of time, Lehi's two sons become the patriarchs of two mighty,
but diametrically opposed, civilizations in America. The Nephites were
a godly people who practiced a pure religion corresponding almost
exactly to that revealed to Joseph Smith two millennia later.
Conversely, the Lamanites devoted themselves to evil, and posed
themselves as the consistent adversaries of the Nephites. In fact, as
recompense for their wickedness, God eventually cursed the Lamanites
with dark skin, laying the groundwork for a persistent Mormon
identification of dark-skinned peoples with sin (Alma 3:6).
The climax of The Book of Mormon is indicated by the appearance of
Jesus Christ in North America during the three days between his death
and resurrection in Jerusalem (III Nephi). Christ's appearance
inaugurated a golden era of peace and brotherhood between the two
warring civilizations which lasted several centuries. Eventually,
apostasy set in and hostilities between the two peoples resumed (IV
Nephi). The saga ends with a final battle between the Nephites and
Lamanites at a place called Cumorah sometime during the fifth century
A.D. In the end, after a fierce struggle, the Nephite culture was
totally eradicated by the Lamanites (Mormon 8). The sole survivor of
the onslaught was a Nephite prophet and historian named Moroni, who
transcribed the history of his people and sealed it up, awaiting the
day when God would allow the records to be rediscovered (Moroni 10).
The contents of The Book of Mormon seemed to offer compelling
solutions to the spiritual dilemmas faced by religious seekers during
the Second Great Awakening. Instead of the fractious denominationalism
and theological quarreling of evangelical Protestantism, Smith offered
a pristinely restored gospel which contained authoritative answers via
direct divine revelations. The movement slowly began to win adherents,
and by April 6, 1830 Smith had gathered enough followers to officially
form what was then known simply as the "Church of Christ."
During the remaining fourteen years of Joseph Smith's life, the
theological landscape of Mormonism underwent rapid expansion and
development. By the time of Smith's murder the summer of 1844, the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had emerged, not as merely
another eccentric Protestant sect, but as what historian Jan Shipps
has called a religion that distinguished its "tradition from the
Christian tradition as surely as early Christianity was distinguished
from its Hebraic context."7 On the most basic level, the God of
Mormonism was believed to be the same deity worshipped in both the
Jewish and Christian faiths. Indeed, the contemporary LDS theologian
Bruce R. McConkie argued that Adam himself had practiced a proto-
Mormonism during humanity's first generation, which was later lost
through apostasy.8 Thus, Mormonism was always referred to as "the
Restoration," due to the belief that many of the doctrines introduced
by Joseph Smith had been known and practiced both in ancient Israel
and during the apostolic period of the early church. However, the
reintroduction of true gospel doctrine into those periods of apostasy
required a belief in continued divine revelation. God must have the
leeway to speak to humanity, correcting their errors and proclaiming
lost principles anew. Thus, in contrast to the closed Biblical canon
of most Christian churches, the Latter-day Saints have consistently
argued that new revelations, with scriptural authority on the same
level as the Bible, can be and have actually been, handed down to
believers during this latest dispensation.
Because of that restorationist theology, Mormonism has rejected the
religious creeds and confessions that have emerged throughout the
course of post-apostolic Christianity as the products of a "Great
Apostasy." Consequently, Smith had the opportunity to reconstruct the
Mormon image of God from the ground up, unencumbered by the
trinitarian formulations of such statements of faith as the Nicene
Creed.9 Instead, the Saints began to conceive of a God who differed
dramatically in nature from the triune deity worshipped in
Christendom, and one who bridged the chasm between divinity and
humanity in ways never before thought possible.
First of all, Smith construed the concept of monotheism far more
loosely than was common within the Judeo-Christian tradition. Again,
as McConkie put it, Mormon monotheism "properly interpreted ...
mean that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - each of whom is a
separate and distinct godly personage - are one God, meaning one
Godhead." However, McConkie is quick to stipulate, that "it is
evident, from this standpoint alone, that a plurality of Gods
exist."10
Indeed, one of the most valuable sources regarding the Mormon doctrine
of the plurality of gods was the sermon Joseph Smith preached at the
funeral of the LDS elder King Follett in April 1844. The fundamental
principle which underlay that doctrine was Smith's belief in the
eternal progression of humanity. Early in the sermon, Smith remarked
that: "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and
sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the
veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its
orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by this power, was to
make himself visible, - I say, if you were to see him today, you would
see him like a man in form - like yourselves in all the person, image,
and very form of a man... ."11
Thus, the substance of divinity and the substance of humanity were
essentially the same. The ways in which God surpassed humanity in
wisdom and power derived from differences in degree, not of essence.
In fact, "the mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal
[co-eternal] with God himself."12 Smith could then proclaim to his
listeners that: "Here, then, is eternal life - to know the only wise
and true God; and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and
to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before
you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a
small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to
exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are
able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do
those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.13
Literally speaking, every human being who had ever walked the face of
the earth might potentially be exalted to a level of divinity
comparable to that of God. Consequently, any doctrine of original sin
was incompatible with Mormon theology, since God and humanity were of
the same essence. Thus, sin was only the result of humanity's poor
decisions and lack of moral discipline in life rather than of any
inherent flaw in human nature, since that nature was capable of
eventual divinity. Thus, the Book of Mormon called infant baptism a
"solemn mockery before God," because "repentance and baptism" ought
only to be preached to "those who are accountable and capable of
committing sin" (Moroni 8: 8-10). Infants, because they lacked a will
developed enough to choose evil, need not be baptized for the
remission of sins they had never committed. According to the Articles
of Faith of the LDS church, "men will be punished for their own sins,
and not for Adam's transgression."14
In a theological system with such a radically different perception of
the human-God relationship, the doctrine of salvation was also bound
to have dramatically different dynamics. According to McConkie, "one
of the untrue doctrines found in ... Christendom is the concept that
man can gain salvation... by grace alone and without obedience."15
Instead, along with faith, obedience to the restored gospel was
considered an essential condition of redemption. Such obedience
included acceptance of the Mormon faith through baptism, living a
moral and godly life, and the completion of certain ceremonies and
ordinances in the temple.
Indeed, the highest objective in the Mormon scheme of eternity was
achieving after death the state of being known as the Celestial
Kingdom. Into that kingdom, claimed Smith, entered all worthy Mormons;
those who "received the testimony of Jesus, and believed on his
name . . . that, by keeping the commandments, they might be washed and
cleansed from all their sins, and receive the Holy Spirit. . . .
(Doctrine and Covenants 91:5)"16 Within that Celestial Kingdom, the
souls of redeemed Saints might continue their eternal progression to
godhood. Within that realm, departed Mormons "are gods, even the sons
of God" (D & C 91:5). To Smith, that level of exaltation was the
ultimate end of humanity. Again, in the King Follett discourse, Smith
declared: "The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God
himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he
was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest
could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we
have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has
power to institute laws to instruct weaker intelligences, that they
may be exalted with Himself, so that they might have one glory upon
another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence which
is requisite to save them in the world of spirits."" Thus, the
revelations and commandments of Mormonism were the stepping stones to
deity, and careful adherence to them was the key to transcending the
secularism and sectarianism of early nineteenth century America.
Nevertheless, no matter how eagerly the Saints looked forward to their
glorification in the next world, the business of everyday living must
by necessity be carried out in this one. As the sociologist Thomas F.
O'Dea has pointed out, the relationship between religious and secular
authority during the early days of the Mormon movement was quite
paradoxical. Although Mormonism came into being during a time of
heightened democratic awareness in the United States, it quickly
developed many authoritarian tendencies. According to O'Dea, as
Mormonism developed a coherent church polity during the 1830s, a
potentially unstable dichotomy emerged. On one side was the impulse
toward congregationalism that so many of the New England Saints had
been steeped in, which emphasized the authority and participation of
the general membership. On the other hand, to avoid schism the church
needed to contain religious charisma and innovation within the office
of the prophet-president.18 To maintain any kind of unity of purpose,
Smith alone had to be seen as the sole source of direction for the
Restoration movement.
The resulting system has been characterized as "a willingly designated
absolutism."19 Obviously, to allow the average member the same
latitude allowed to Smith in delivering up prophetic revelations
affecting the earthly destiny of God's true church would be to promote
any number of withdrawals and secessions from the parent body as new
"prophets" eagerly stepped forward into leadership positions. In order
to cope with that tension, Smith oversaw the development of the Mormon
church's extensive system of lay priesthood. Lacking a professional
clergy, one of the signature traits of Mormonism has always been the
induction of all male members of good standing into a multitiered
priesthood. Thus, the work of "kingdom building" within the LDS church
has always been widely distributed, offering opportunities for service
to a large number of individuals.

However, at the same time Smith organized a hierarchy which
concentrated decision-making power within the church's upper echelons,
especially the First Presidency (the presidentprophet and his two
primary advisors) and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. As O'Dea
remarked: "Mormonism had attempted to reconcile prophetic leadership
with congregationalism, an attempt that worked itself out in the
context of common suffering and achievement. What had developed was a
democracy of participation and an oligarchy of decision making and
command. As hierarchical bodies evolved, they were filled with men
capable of exerting leadership. The development of a chain of command
meant also the promotion of potential leaders from below... Thus
Mormon authoritarianism drew its leaders from the ranks, and the ranks
supported such leaders."20 Ultimately, the role of the rank-and-file
membership became "a matter more of expression of assent" than the
exercise of any real power of leadership.21
However, the Saints' attitude toward power that originated from
outside the church was markedly different. Indeed, a very favorable
disposition toward the democratic form of government was detectable
even within the pages of The Book of Mormon. That sentiment led the
great Nephite ruler Mosiah to declare, "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 (Mosiah 29:26)."
It seemed that inherently within the people, there existed a moral
compass which was capable of steering rulers in the direction of just
government. Good secular leadership was not authoritarian; rather, it
concerned itself with meeting the people's needs and protecting their
rights. Indeed, Mormonism also affirmed much of the natural rights
theory which undergirded the United States Constitution and Bill of
Rights. For instance: "We believe that no government can exist, in
peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure
to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and
control of property and the protection of life.
"We believe that religion is instituted of God, and that men are
amenable to him and him only for the exercise of it, unless their
religious opinion prompts them to infringe on the rights and liberties
of others; but we do not believe that human law has a right to
interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of
men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the civil
magistrate should restrain crime, but never control conscience; should
punish guilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul." (D & C 102:
2, 4) And again, in The Book of Mormon: "For there was a law that men
should be judged according to their crimes. Nevertheless, there was no
law against a man's belief; therefore, a man was punished only for the
crimes which he had done; therefore all men were on equal
grounds." (Alma 30: 11) Thus, protection of the free exercise of
religion was one of the greatest expectations the Saints had of the
United States government.
This principle suggests a paradox in the Mormon attitude concerning
the relationship between religion and power. Within the church and the
immediate community, Mormons tended to favor an authoritarian style of
leadership, which enforced doctrinal conformity and defended such
"peculiar" LDS social institutions as secret temple rituals and,
eventually, polygamy. On the other hand, the constitutional theory
articulated by Smith and his followers steadfastly advocated the
principles of religious liberty and governmental noninterference with
the religious lives of its citizens. Seen in that light, the Mormons
demanded traits in their leaders at the state and national level that
would have seemed quite distasteful to them if possessed by authority
figures closer to home.
However, the LDS historian J. Keith Melville suggested that there
existed a quite logical connection between the doctrines of Mormonism
and the Saints' strong advocacy of the Constitution. As that scholar
contended, "the principle of free agency - so vital doctrinally to all
[Mormon] people in order that they might prove their worthiness and
return to God as celestial beings - is fostered by the free
environment provided by the Constitution.22 Thus, implicit in LDS
theology was the necessity for the religion to exist within a free
society. If one was ultimately to be saved by their works in this
life, one must be allowed the opportunity to perform those works.
Existing alongside the church's more authoritarian tendencies, then,
was also the expectation that Mormonism could only flourish in a
society that was free.
The tension between those two views of authority within the Mormon
church became increasingly apparent in the years between the church's
organization in 1830 and Smith's assassination in 1844. In 1831, Smith
moved the church en masse from Palmyra, New York to Kirtland, Ohio.
After a disastrous foray into the banking business, Smith and the
Mormon church again migrated to Missouri in 1838, to join an existing
LDS community which had been founded there in 1831.
The years spent in Missouri were one of the bitterest chapters in
Mormon history. The old, non-Mormon population resented the intrusion
of this strange sect into their territory, and violence soon erupted.
Both sides denounced each other from the pulpit and in print, and both
sides raised unofficial armies to terrorize one another. Finally, in
1839, Smith and his associates gave up the struggle with the intensely
hostile Missourians, and retreated east to the small city of Commerce,
Illinois, which the Saints renamed Nauvoo.23
In relocating to Nauvoo, Smith and the Mormons enjoyed a considerable
number of privileges that they would never have thought possible
during their Missouri years. The Illinois state legislature issued the
Saints an exceptionally generous city charter, which allowed the
Mormons a large degree of self-government. Illinois granted Nauvoo the
authority to "make, ordain, establish and execute all such ordinances
not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States or this
State."24 The city held the power to muster its own militia, known as
the Nauvoo Legion, which commissioned Smith as its commander, holding
the rank of lieutenant general. (The Nauvoo Legion was one of the
biggest causes for alarm among the areas non-Mormon population. One
worried newspaper editor inquired, "What would be thought if the
Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, or Episcopalians of this state
had military organizations. . . ?")25 Under this charter the city
flourished, until only Chicago rivaled it in population within the
state of Illinois.26 Indeed, the Nauvoo charter was an instrument of
government well suited to Smith's unique political philosophy. As
historian Robert Bruce Flanders put it: "On its face it was just
another city charter with some novel clauses; in operation it was a
charter to create a Mormon kingdom in the sovereign state of Illinois.
Smith conceived Nauvoo to be federated with Illinois somewhat as
Illinois was federated with the United States, with strong legal and
patriotic ties to be sure, but also with guaranteed immunities and
rights of its own."27
Thus, having finally obtained a period of relative peace and
prosperity after the intense persecutions of the previous decade,
Smith set about the task of securing some sort of political protection
for his oft beleaguered Saints. Smith looked to the upcoming
presidential race, hoping to secure the ear of a candidate willing to
come to the aid of the Mormons. As the Presidential election of 1844
approached, six potential candidates dominated the nation's political
landscape. First was the Democrat and former president Martin Van
Buren. Still stinging from his 1840 loss to William Henry Harrison, in
1844 Van Buren attempted a presidential comeback. Offering a platform
which featured opposition to both the annexation of Texas and the
expansion of slavery into the territories, Van Buren found that those
positions would in fact cost him his party's nomination that year.
John C. Calhoun was another prominent name who was considered for the
Democratic nomination in 1844. An articulate spokesman for the slave
culture of the South, Calhoun favored continued westward expansion,
taking the "peculiar institution" in tow. However, his positive
insistence on the virtue and morality of slavery greatly reduced his
viability as a candidate for national office. Next was the last minute
Democratic nominee and eventual victor, James Knox Polk. Polk was
zealous in his desire to bring a slave-- holding Texas and a free
Oregon into the Union, offering an expansionist option to voters which
maintained the sectional balance between slave and free states.
Meanwhile, within the Whig camp, incumbent President John Tyler was
denied renomination due to his party's dissatisfaction with his
excessive use of the veto against their own legislation. Thus, the
Whig nomination went to his inter-party rival Henry Clay, who ran on a
platform advocating continued sectional balance between the slave and
free states; however, he opposed risking war with Great Britain or
Mexico in order to annex new territory. Finally, the staunchly
abolitionist candidate of the dark-horse Liberty Party was James G.
Birney. Running primarily on the slavery issue, Birney favored general
emancipation and resettlement of the freed slaves in Africa or the
Caribbean. Indeed, Birney's popularity in the Northern states drew key
votes away from Clay, assisting Polk in his eventual victory.28
Joseph Smith watched the developing race with intense interest.
Although Polk entered the race too late to be noticed by Smith, and
the Mormon founder fundamentally disagreed with Birney's abolitionist
stance, the Nauvoo mayor was especially interested in obtaining some
kind of commitment or pledge of assistance from at least one of the
other four remaining candidates. Each one received a letter from Smith
requesting a redress of the Saints' grievances; each candidate avoided
making Smith any promises. Smith did not attempt to hide his contempt
over the noncommittal politicians of his day. No doubt Smith would
have applied his written response to Henry Clay equally to Tyler, Van
Buren, and Calhoun: "I mourn for the depravity of the world; I despise
the imbecility of American statesmen; I detest the shrinkage of
candidates for office, from pledges and responsibly; I long for a day
of righteousness, when he 'whose right it is to reign, shall judge the
poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth,' and I pray
God, who hath given our fathers a promise of a perfect government in
the last days, to purify the hearts of the people and hasten the
welcome day."29 Smith felt the time had come to make a bold statement.
In order to demonstrate the political clout of the Mormons to the
nation's two major parties, as well as to publicize his own views on
the nature of government, Joseph Smith determined to offer himself as
a candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America.
Upon announcing his candidacy, Smith composed a document entitled
"Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United
States," his most comprehensive statement of political philosophy.
Within that treatise, Smith outlined six major policies that he wished
to implement if elected to the presidency: the gradual abolition of
slavery, a reduction in the membership of Congress, the re-
establishment of a national bank, a campaign for vast territorial
expansion, a federal government empowered to protect the liberties
guaranteed in the Constitution from acts of mob violence, and an
agenda of radical prison reform.
The first of those policies was a plan for the gradual elimination of
slavery. Indeed, only a few years earlier, in 1835, Smith had
published a revelation in the Doctrines and Covenants that implies a
very hands-off approach to the slavery issue. It read: ". . . but we
do not believe it right to interfere with bond-servants, neither
preach the gospel to, nor baptize them, contrary to the will and wish
of their masters, not to meddle with, or influence them in the least
to cause them to be dissatisfied with their situations in this life,
thereby jeopardizing the lives of men: such interference we believe to
be unlawful and unjust, and dangerous to the peace of every government
allowing human beings to be held in servitude." (D & C 102:12)
However, by the time of the 1844 campaign, although still not an
abolitionist, Smith embraced an anti-slavery platform. Towards the
beginning of his "Views," Smith remarked that: "My cogitations ...
have for a long time troubled me, when I viewed the condition of men
throughout the world, and more especially in this boasted realm, where
the Declaration of Independence 'holds these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;' but at the same time
some two or three millions of people are held as slaves for life,
because the spirit in them is covered with a darker skin than
ours. . . ."30 However Smith was quick to renounce the abolitionist
stance advocating the immediate termination of slavery. Reflecting
Mormonism's long-standing suspicion of a professional, ordained
clergy, Smith saw abolitionism as a form of sectional aggression
engineered by the entrenched religious interests of the north. "A
hireling psuedo-priesthood," argued Smith, "will plausibly push
abolition doctrines and doings and 'human rights' into Congress, and
into every other place where conquest smells of fame, or opposition
swells to popularity."31
Instead, Smith wished to encourage a movement in which the
slaveholding states would, by their own initiative, petition their
individual legislatures to phase out slavery by 1850. In doing so, the
southern states could put to rest any lingering northern doubts about
the fundamental moral fabric of southern culture. Smith's
administration would support that state-by-state movement by using
federal funds obtained through the sale of western lands to reimburse
slave owners for their lost property As he put it in his "Views": "The
Southern people are hospitable and noble. They will help to rid so
free a country of every vestige of slavery, whenever they are assured
of an equivalent for their property.32 By liberating their slaves, not
only would southerners be taking the moral high ground, but they would
also undercut the dubious agenda of the abolitionists. In Smith's
opinion, the moral imperialism practiced by such northern extremists
as William Lloyd Garrison and the Beechers could only lead to
"reproach and ruin, infamy and shame."33 Only with the South's
cooperation could slavery be ended and national unity preserved.
Smith's next goal involved a vast reduction in the size of Congress.
In his "Views," Smith announced his desire to: "Reduce Congress at
least two-thirds. Two Senators from a State and two members to a
million of population will do more business than the army that now
occupy the halls of the national Legislature. Pay them two dollars and
their board per them (except Sundays.) That is more than the farmer
gets, and he lives honestly. . . ."34 Smith was distrustful of a
federal government which seemed to be deliberately increasing its own
power. Washington's proper sphere was oversight and regulation, and
Smith sought to limit its size before it began to intrude upon the
domain of local government and the community.
On the economic front, Smith argued intensely for the reestablishment
of a National Bank. In order to appease those who felt that such an
institution only served to increase the powers of the federal
government at the expense of the states, Smith urged that a branch of
the bank be located within each territory and state, with the bank's
officers being elected by the people within its district. That bank
would issue currency valid throughout the United States, and its
profits would be rolled over into the coffers of the federal
government (in the case of the central institution), or the states (in
the case of the branches). In order to promote monetary stability and
curtail inflation, Smith insisted on a dollar per dollar policy on the
production of paper money; no bills could be printed without an equal
amount of specie in the vaults to back them up.35
Smith also favored the annexation of Texas and Oregon to the United
States. As the Mormon founder contended: "Oregon belongs to this
government honorably; and when we have the red man's consent, let the
Union spread from the east to the west sea; and if Texas petitions
Congress to be adopted among the sons of liberty, give her the right
hand of fellowship, and refuse not the same friendly grip to Canada
and Mexico.36 Not surprisingly, Smith realized (as would Brigham Young
a decade later) that the degree of liberty required to allow movements
like his to flourish was greatly dependent upon the steady expansion
of the frontier. The unsettled west invited social experimentation,
while the ever-increasing population of the east and midwest meant
criticism, conflict, and unrelenting pressure for conformity.
Smith also saw in the expanding frontier the potential for defusing
sectional tensions concerning the growth of slavery. In a journal
entry dated March 7,1844, Smith ruminated about the annexation of
Texas and the corresponding concerns of Northerners that such an
action would upset the nation's fragile sectional balance: "Don't let
Texas go.. . . If these things are not so God never spoke by any
prophet since the world began. I have been [discreet about what I
know. In the struggle between the north and the] south, [if the south]
held the balance of power by annexing Texas, [this could still be
remedied]. I can do away [with] this evil [and] liberate [the slaves
in] 2 or 3 states and if that was not sufficient, call in Canada [to
be annexed]."37 Once again, in Smith's political thought the federal
government assumed a regulatory role (in this case maintaining the
balance between slave and free states), while moral issues were
decided on a more local level. Indeed, Smith remained unwilling to
force the South to emancipate their slaves. Rather, the Mormon founder
hoped that through westward expansion, resolution of the problem of
slavery might be postponed until the South, as a distinct regional
community, could muster the moral strength necessary to eliminate the
"peculiar institution" themselves.
No issue in Smith's platform was more inspired by the Saints'
misfortunes that his insistence on the vigorous protection of
constitutional liberties by the federal government. The Nauvoo mayor
sought to defend Mormon political rights against the hostile local and
state authorities who had so often encouraged violence against the
Saints in order to crush the Mormon community. Smith believed that
reason was of no use with such officials, whose lawlessness seemed to
embody the old motto "talk not of law to men who wear swords."38 Smith
pleaded that the electorate might see fit to "give every man his
constitutional freedom and the president full power to send an army to
suppress mobs, and the States authority to repeal and impugn that
relic of folly which makes it necessary for the governor of a state to
make the demand of the President for troops, in case of invasion or
rebellion."39 Thus, Smith sought a central government strong and
assertive enough to defend the rights of oppressed minorities against
the "mobocracy" of unfriendly neighbors. Referring back to the Saints'
bloody sojourn in Missouri, Smith even sought avenues for action in
case "the governor himself may be a mobber," an explicit reference to
Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs, who had used militia troops to drive
the Mormons from his state in 1838. Smith intended to use the powers
of the presidency to check the illegal power exercised by officials
such as Boggs.
The final item on Smith's agenda, and perhaps the most radical plank
in his platform, concerned a thoroughgoing reform of America's prison
system. In his "Views," Smith exhorted America's citizens to:
"petition your State Legislatures to pardon every convict in their
several penitentiaries, blessing them as they go, and saying to them,
in the name of the Lord, Go thy way, and sin no more.
"Advise your legislators, when they make laws for ... any felony, to
make the penalty applicable to work upon roads, public works, or any
place where the culprit can be taught more wisdom and more virtue, and
become more enlightened. Rigor and seclusion will never do as much to
reform the propensities of men as reason and friendship. Murder only
can claim confinement or death. Let the penitentiaries be turned into
seminaries of learning, where intelligence, like the angels of heaven,
would banish such fragments of barbarism.1141 Again, on this issue
Smith demonstrated his faith in the potential deification of humanity.
A human race unfettered by the chains of original sin need not adopt a
Draconian code of law. Smith also advocated the termination of
imprisonment for debt, and of punishing soldiers for desertion. Smith
believed that the thought of forfeiting honor would be incentive
enough to keep military men at their posts.' Society's first response
to crime ought to be an attempt to reintegrate the offender back into
the community. Not unexpectedly, that proposal subjected Smith to a
degree of ridicule. (An unfriendly newspaper editorial reprinted in
the Nauvoo Neighbor remarked that "if this humane recommendation be
adopted, the 'specie basis' would soon disappear from Joe's mother
bank and branches . . . which would show a 'beggarly account of empty
boxes.'")43 However, that view of prison reform was consistent with
Smith's concept of the local community and its religious institutions
as the level at which moral authority was ultimately exercised. Thus,
the federal and state governments would assume a regulatory role in
defining crime and overseeing the judicial process, but the reform of
the individual perpetrator must be left to the community. By
sentencing such convicts to meaningful labor within the community,
Smith hoped that their morality might be improved, their personal
honor restored, and that they might eventually be reassimilated into
society as law-abiding and productive citizens.
Smith made the formal announcement of his candidacy on January 29,
1844. At first, James A. Bennett, a New York businessman, was selected
as Smith's Vice Presidential candidate. However, after it was
discovered that Bennett had been born in Ireland and was therefore
ineligible for office, the number two position fell to Sidney Rigdon,
Smith's close friend and advisor. As he launched his campaign, Smith
admonished his supporters to "tell the people we have had Whig and
Democrats Presidents long enough. We want a President of the United
States."44 At the same meeting, Smith commissioned such prominent
Mormon figures as Brigham Young, John Taylor, Parley Pratt, Sidney
Rigdon, and Joseph's brother Hyrum to head to the east coast to
electioneer for the Saints' candidate. During the following weeks of
the campaign, Smith maintained an upbeat, yet realistic, attitude.
Indeed, the Mormon founder openly admitted that the campaign was
partially motivated by his desire to make the Saints' political clout
felt on the state and national level. Smith stated that: "I do not
care so much about the Pres[idential] election as I do the office I
have got. We have as good a right to make political party to gain
power to defend ourselves as for demagogues to make use of our
religion to get power to destroy ourselves. We will whip the mob by
getting up a President. Smith then quipped, "When I look into the
eastern papers and see how popular I am, I am afraid I shall be
President."45
Of course, Smith's bid for high office was greeted with enthusiasm
within the Mormon community at Nauvoo. Inside the pages of the Nauvoo
Neighbor, Smith was heartily endorsed on an almost weekly basis. The
proclamation, or the Views of General Smith on the Powers and policy
of the Government, is acknowledged by all parties to be the ablest
document of the kind they ever saw... What a blessing to have a
prophet and seer at the helm, to avert evils, and dispense bounteous
blessings.... [Smith] fearlessly declares his political as well as
religious principles .General Smith is the man that the God of heaven
designs to make a savior of the nations now . . ."46
Travelers visiting Nauvoo wrote letters to the editor recording their
favorable impressions of the Mormon prophet. From many reports, I had
reason to believe [Smith] a bigoted religionist as ignorant of
politics as the savage, but to my utter astonishment... I have found
him as familiar with the cabinet of nations, as with his Bible. . . .
Free from all bigotry and superstition, he dives into every subject,
and it seems as though the world was not large enough to satisfy his
capacious soul, and from his conversation, one might suppose him as
well acquainted with other worlds as this."47 Mormon writers even
compared Smith to such luminaries as America's first president. ". . .
like a second Washington, he arms himself with the principles of
Freedom, virtue, political economy, and religious rights, and with
these weapons he combats the powers of political demagoguery until
there shall be neither root nor branch left, to contaminate the free
born sons of these United States."48
Occasionally, those accolades even came in verse:
Kinderhook, Kass, Kalhoun, nor Klay;
Kan never surely win the day.
But if you want to know who Kan,
You'll find in General Smith the man.49
Thus, despite Smith's awareness that his chances of victory were
minuscule, he nevertheless took the time to develop a relatively
rational and well-thought out platform, and invested a considerable
amount of the church's resources (both human and financial) in
advertising his campaign to non-Mormons who would not necessarily be
sympathetic to his cause.
Indeed, despite the historiographical controversy concerning the
genesis of Smith's ideas and his real intent in starting a church, by
the time the Saints founded Nauvoo, the Mormon founder had developed a
coherent and workable theory of government, authority, and power.
Smith's politics were an odd conglomeration of seventeenth century
religious communitarianism and eighteenth century natural rights
philosophy, couched in the language of Jacksonian democracy. Like John
Winthrop and many of the early Puritan settlers of America, Smith
placed society's moral authority within the bounds of the community.
Religion, ethics, and the development of group identity were all
functions reserved for the church and the local government.
However, Smith recognized that America was a diverse society, and he
highly valued the Constitution's guarantees of personal liberty.
Indeed, the most important function of the federal government was to
enforce those liberties. Ultimately though, Smith saw those liberties
as applying primarily to individual communities more than they did to
individual people. Therefore, people ought to have the right to join
any community they so chose. Furthermore, it was incumbent upon the
federal government to protect each community in the enjoyment of its
Constitutional liberties. Smith saw the U.S. presidency as a guardian
that must take upon itself the protection of the smallest and weakest
of those communities from the often violent disapproval of its more
powerful neighbors.
Thus, Smith could remark in the Nauvoo Neighbor of April 17, 1844 that
"the world is governed too much, and there is not a nation or a
dynasty now occupying the earth which acknowledges Almighty God as
their lawgiver, and ... I go emphatically, virtuously, and humanely,
for a Theodemocracy, where God and the people hold the power to
conduct the affairs of men in righteousness."50 In Smith's eyes, this
"theodemocracy" was the perfect democracy, where the government
guaranteed all people the freedom to attach themselves to whatever
moral community they desired. Thus, the people, through their elected
government, wielded power which preserved liberty, while the community
and its religious institutions undertook the development of public and
private morality. A government, indeed, where God and the people
seemed to rule together.
However, it would be the introduction of radical new doctrines into
Mormonism during the Nauvoo period which would lead to the unraveling
of Smith's "theodemocratic" principles, and, eventually, to the
downfall of Mormonism in Illinois. The LDS church's open canon of
scripture suggested the possibility that the next divine revelation
might dramatically change the character of the faith. Such was the
case with the doctrine of polygamy. As early as 1841 Smith had begun
to teach the doctrine of plural marriage to the inner circle of Mormon
leadership, and by 1843 he was recording his extra marriages in his
journal.51 The introduction of polygamy into Mormonism had two major
consequences. First of all, it introduced a large element of
instability into Smith's political philosophy. If plural marriage were
to be practiced within the LDS church, then suddenly the regulatory
duties of the federal government were in direct conflict with the
moral and spiritual mission of the community.

Secondly, the new body of doctrine alienated many Mormons who had
embraced the faith during the church's earlier days when it more
closely resembled traditional Christianity. The new revelations
concerning multiple marriage, along with the emerging doctrines
concerning the plurality of gods and eternal human progression,
precipitated a large departure from the church during the last year of
Smith's life. One of those people was a man named William Law. A
former counselor of Smith's, Law was appalled by the rumors of those
novel teachings, withdrew from the church and established an
opposition press known as the Nauvoo Expositor. In the Expositor's
first and only issue, the paper stated as its purpose the disclosure
of the corrupt doctrines that had taken hold within the Mormon church.
Indeed, the Expositor was not an anti-Mormon publication; the editors
insisted on the first page that "we all verily believe, and many of us
know as a surety, that the religion of the Latter Day Saints, as
originally taught by Joseph Smith ... is verily true." However, the
editors also exhorted the Saints to not ". . . yield up tranquilly a
superiority to that man which the reasonableness of past events, and
the laws of our country declare to be pernicious and diabolical. We
hope many items of doctrine, as now taught, some of which, however,
are taught secretly, and denied openly, (which we know positively is
the case,) and others publicly, considerate men will treat with
contempt; for we declare them heretical and damnable in their
influence, though they find many devotees."52
Concerning Smith's presidential ambitions, the Expositor remarked
that: "We see that our friend the Neighbor, advocates the claims of
Gen. Joseph Smith for the Presidency; we also see from the records of
the grand Jury of Hancock Co. at their recent term, that the general
is a candidate to represent the branch of the state government at
Alton [prison]. We would respectfully suggest to the Neighbor, whether
the two offices are not incompatible with each other.53
Of course, Smith and the church hierarchy at Nauvoo were outraged.
Smith swiftly summoned the Nauvoo city council, and, declaring the
Expositor a nuisance to be abated, had the press and as many issues of
the paper as he could obtain burned. In a statement later published in
the Neighbor, Smith accused the publishers of the Expositor of seeking
"the destruction of the institutions of this city, both civil and
religious." Consequently, "to rid the city of a paper so filthy and
pestilential as this, become the duty of every good citizen, who loves
good order and morality... If then our charter gives us the power to
decide what shall be a nuisance and cause it to be removed, where is
the offense? What law is violated? If then no law has been violated,
why this ridiculous excitement and bandying with lawless ruffians to
destroy the happiness of a people whose religious motto is 'peace and
good will toward all men'?"54
Livid over the suppression of their paper, the anti-Smith party filed
charges of inciting a riot against Smith at the county seat of
Carthage, Illinois. Aware of the intense hostility that he aroused,
Smith attempted to have the trial moved to Nauvoo, for fear of mob
violence. Smith succeeded in obtaining a Nauvoo trial, but his
acquittal there only heightened opposition and intensified demands
that he face trial outside the city. Smith made plans to leave the
city and flee west; however, when his absence was noticed, the posse
sent to arrest him threatened to occupy Nauvoo. Messengers from the
Mormon city caught up with Smith and convinced him to return for the
sake of his people. On June 25, 1844, Smith was taken into custody and
placed in the jail at Carthage, where he sat for two tense days.
Finally, on June 27, an angry mob assembled outside the prison,
stormed the building (with little resistance from the guards), and
murdered Smith, shooting him as he leaped out a window for safety.55
Thus ended the personal political aspirations of the Mormon founder.
However, the ideology he articulated would long survive him. Within
three years of Smith's death, Brigham Young led the Saints' exodus
from Nauvoo to the Great Basin, where Smith's social principles would
be applied by the church on a far grander scale.
Joseph Smith devoted most of his adult life to the development of a
religion that differed markedly from the forms of Christianity that
had preceded it. As the Mormon church developed and articulated the
concept of an actual physical gathering of believers, Smith's
worldview expanded beyond the realm of mere speculative or revealed
theology and grew to include social and political theory as well.
Smith embraced an old-fashioned view of the church and community,
believing those bodies to be the repository of society's moral and
religious authority. However, Smith also embraced a limited concept of
religious liberty, insofar as he believed the country's various
communities ought to be able to coexist within one national entity,
with individuals free to choose between them.
Thus, Smith's 1844 presidential campaign amounted to the Mormon
founder's attempt to publicize those views on the national level.
Smith advocated a platform which assigned the president a primarily
regulatory role, vigorously defending religious freedom against the
"mobocracy" and violence of hostile communities which might try to
crush unpopular minorities simply by the power of their numbers.
However, the introduction of new doctrines into the church, especially
plural marriage, at a critical moment threw that political theory off
balance, pitting the interests of the government in regulating
marriage against the Saints' newfound belief in polygamy. Upset by
that new course, former believers and supporters emerged as opponents,
precipitating a series of crises that ended with Smith's murder in
Carthage, Illinois in June 1844. However, the seeds of a new social
order had been planted, seeds which would take root in Salt Lake City
and produce a harvest that would greatly affect the future of American
westward migration in the nineteenth century, and serve as the
foundation of Utah's vital and dynamic religious culture in the
twentieth.
Notes
1 Joseph Smith, An American Prophet's Record: The Diaries and Journals
of Joseph Smith, ed. Scott H. Faulting (Salt Lake City: Signature
Books, 1987), 464.
2 Nauvoo Expositor, 7 June 1844, p. 2.
3 Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith,
Mormon Prophet. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), ix. Illinois
Governor Thomas Ford, who presided over the state at the time of
Smith's murder, expressed a similar sentiment when he reflected that:
"The Christian world, which has hitherto regarded Mormonism with
silent contempt, unhappily may yet have cause to fear its rapid
increase. Modern society is full of material for such a religion. At
the death of the prophet... the Mormons in all the world numbered
about two hundred thousand souls...; a number equal, perhaps, to the
number of Christians, when the Christian Church was of the same age.
It is to be feared that, in course of a century, some gifted man like
Paul, some splendid orator... may succeed in breathing new life into
this modern Mahometanism, and make the name of the martyred Joseph
ring as loud, and stir the souls of men as much, as the mighty name of
Christ itself.... And in that event, the author of this history [Ford]
feels degraded by the reflection, that the humble governor of an
obscure state, who would otherwise be forgotten in a few years, stands
a fair chance, like Pilate and Herod, by their official connection
with the true religion, of being dragged down to posterity with an
immortal name, hitched on to the memory of a miserable impostor."
Thomas Ford, History of Illinois From its Commencement as a State in
1818 to 1847 (New York: S. C. Griggs and Company, 1854), 359-60.
4 Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A
History of the Latter-day Saints (Urbana, Illinois: University of
Illinois Press, 1992), xv. For an explicitly Mormon interpretation of
Smith's presidential campaign, see Richard Vetterli, Mormonism,
Americanism and Politics (Salt Lake City: Ensign Publishing Company,
1961).
5 George M. Marsden, Religion and American Culture (Fort Worth, Texas:
Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1990), 4.
6 Arrington and Bitton, 5-8; Brodie 21-25, 405-10.
7 Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition
(Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1985), x. For a
dissenting view that argues for the continuity of Mormonism within
traditional American Christianity, see Grant Underwood, The
Millenarian World of Early Mormonism (Urbana, Illinois: University of
Illinois Press, 1993). Those same issues are also taken up in Richard
L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana,
Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1988).
8 Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft,
1979), 16-18, 333.
9 The Nicene Creed states "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, the onlybegotten of the Father, that is, from
the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of
true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father,
through whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth, who
for us humans and for our salvation descended and became incarnate,
becoming human, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to
the heavens, and will come to judge the living and the dead. And in
the Holy Spirit." Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity (San
Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1984), 1:165.
10 McConkie, 511, 576-77.
11 Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints: History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Company, 1980), 6:305.
12 Ibid., 6:310. Brackets inserted by editor.
13 Ibid., 6:306.
14 McConkie, 550.
15 Ibid., 670-72.
16 All quotations from The Doctrine and Covenants are taken from the
first edition, published in Kirtland, Ohio in 1835. Subsequent
editions rearranged the system of numbering the various sections and
articles.
17 Smith, History, 6:312.
18 Thomas F. O'Dea, The Mormons (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1957), 160-65.
19 Ibid., 163.
20 Ibid., 165.
21 Ibid., 167.
22 J. Keith Melville, "Joseph Smith, the Constitution, and Individual
Liberties," BYU Studies 28 (Spring 1988): 65-74.
23 Arrington and Bitton, 61-64. For a comprehensive history of early
Illinois, see James E. Davis, Frontier Illinois (Bloomington, Indiana:
Indiana University Press, 1999).
24 Brodie, 267. Thomas Ford later remarked that this clause seemed to
give the city the "power to pass ordinances in violation of the laws
of the State, and to erect a system of government for themselves."
Ford, 264.
25 Robert Bruce Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana,
Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1975), 113.
26 Arrington and Bitton, 68-69; Brodie, 256-74. In 1844, Thomas Ford
estimated Nauvoo's population to be between 12,000 - 15,000 residents.
Ford, 320.
27 Flanders, 104.
28 For further information on the issues that loomed large on the
American political scene in the two decades before the Civil War, see
David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1976).
29 Melville, 73.
30 Smith, History, 6:197.
31 Ibid., 6:204.
32 Ibid., 6:207.
33 Ibid., 6:205.
34 Ibid., 6:204-05.
35 Ibid., 6:206.
36 Ibid., 6:206.
37 Smith, Diaries and Journals, 457. Brackets inserted by editor.
38 Nauvoo Neighbor, 3 April 1844, p. 1.
39 Smith, History, 6:206.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., 6:205.
42 Ibid.
43 Neighbor, 10 April 1844, p. 2.
44 Smith, Diaries and Journals, 443.
45 Ibid., 456.
46 Neighbor, 3 April 1844, p. 1.
47 Neighbor, 10 April 1844, p. 3.
48 Neighbor, 1 May 1844, p. 2.
49 Neighbor, 27 March 1844, p. 2.
50 Brodie, 364.
51 Arrington and Bitton, 69; Smith, 387.
52 Expositor, 7 June 1844, p. 1.
53 Ibid., 2.
54 Neighbor, 19 June 1844, p. 3.
55 In retrospect, Thomas Ford saw the eruption of violence against the
Mormons as a failure of frontier democracy. Ford contended that: "If
the people will have anarchy, there is no power short of despotism
capable of forcing them to submission; and the despotism which
naturally grows out of anarchy, can never be established by those who
are elected to administer regular government. If the mob spirit is to
continue, it must necessarily lead to despotism; but this despotism
will be erected upon the ruins of government, and not spring out of
it .... Where the people are unfit for liberty; where they will not be
free without violence, license and injustice to others; where they do
not deserve to be free, nature itself will give them a master. No form
of constitution can make them free and keep them so. On the contrary,
a people who are fit for and deserve liberty, cannot be enslaved."
Ford, 435-36.
However, over half a century later, historian Theodore Calvin Pease
still offered a classic rationalization of anti-Mormon violence as a
"safety valve" against the encroachment of theocracy when he remarked:
"After full allowance is made for the violence and perhaps greed of
the opponents of the Mormons in Illinois, it must be admitted that
they saw clearly how terrible an excrescence on the political life of
the state the Mormon community would be, once it had attained full
growth. Because legal means would not protect them from the danger
they used violence. The machinery of state government was then ... but
a slight affair; and to enforce the will of public opinion, the resort
to private war, though to be deplored, was inevitable." Theodore
Calvin Pease, Centennial History of Illinois, It: The Frontier State,
1818-1846 (Springfield: Illinois Centennial Commission, 1918), 362.
Timothy L. Wood holds an M.A. in history from the University of
Louisville and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Marquette University
in Milwaukee. He has previously written on such topics as the impact
of Puritanism and Methodism on early America, and his work has
appeared in such journals as The New England Quarterly, Fides et
Historia, Methodist History, and Rhode Island History. He presently
resides in his hometown of Clarksville, Indiana.

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