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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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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

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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.

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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