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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

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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.

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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.

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

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