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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
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
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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).
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