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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
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.
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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.
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