Copyright 1913, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

CHAPTER 10

MURDER OF THE PROPHET

IT now becomes necessary to devote a chapter to the fortunes of Joseph Smith, rather than to those of Brigham Young. Brigham was going quietly about his business, doing whatever work came to hand, "taking care of his family" -- which by this time had been increased by four plural wives -- and supplying counsel and advice to his erratic chief. Smith, drunk with the adulation of his little world, was dreaming of limitless political power while yet scarcely through dodging Missouri sheriffs. But Smith, with all his vagaries, was head of the church; and his movements determined those of his far more able disciple, even as the whims of the stupid Philip Second overrode the "cribbed and cabined" genius of Parma.

Under pressure of public opinion, Smith had submitted to arrest in the charge connected with the attempted murder of Governor Boggs, and had been freed by the federal court. But he did not for a moment renounce his claim of independent, judicial sovereignty for his handy little municipal court of Nauvoo. It was this municipal court which foiled the last attempt of the Missourians to drag the prophet back for trial; and belief in the right of this court to issue writs of habeas corpus became the shibboleth by which Smith tested the friendship of those non-Mormons who sought his political influence. Walker, the Whig candidate for congress in that district in 1843, had vehemently upheld the right of the municipal court to issue such writs, and expected to receive in return the Mormon vote and a consequent election to congress. But Governor Ford of Illinois was a Democrat who, by virtue of his office, could call out the militia, arrest Smith, and deliver him up to the Missouri authorities. A Democratic politician came to Nauvoo, and speaking in Ford's name, though not with his authorization, informed Smith that he was safe so long as his followers voted the Democratic ticket.

The result of this message was as fine a demonstration of ecclesiastical subtlety as anything that can be shown in the annals of Italy or Scotland. Joseph had bound himself to vote for Walker. But Hyrum, the prophet's brother, now announced that he had a revelation directing the Saints to vote for Hoge, Walker's Democratic opponent. William Law challenged Hyrum's claim to a revelation, and Joseph was called in to settle the dispute. "I am going to vote for Walker," said Joseph solemnly. "But Brother Hyrum is a man of truth; I have never known him to tell a lie. If he says he has a revelation from the Lord telling the Saints to vote the Democratic ticket, no doubt it is a fact; and I would advise you that in this matter, Hyrum is a safer guide than I am. When the Lord speaks, let all the earth keep silence before him!"

The congregation took the hint, and Hoge was elected by a majority of four hundred and fifty-five votes.

The trick arrayed the whole Whig party of Illinois against the Mormons and inspired the Democrats with apprehension of the time when a similar cross-circuit revelation would be turned against themselves. Also, it inspired Smith with an added sense of power, and set him to asking what that power might get for him. His answer to this self-questioning is rather startling. He decided to become President of the United States.

At this distance of time, Smith's ambition seems a wild and uncanny dream. To him and to his followers, it was the most serious of realities. Smith had demanded from Clay and Calhoun, the two chief candidates for Presidential nominations, what would be their course toward the Latter Day Saints if nominated and elected to this high office. Both men answered with very proper refusals to take cognizance of any church as such. Clay declined to make any pledges save those implied by his life and record. Calhoun pointed out that the federal authority could give no help to the Mormons in securing redress from Missouri for wrongs suffered while they were residents of that state.

These rebuffs roused Joseph to something as near righteous wrath as his inconsequential good-nature permitted him to feel. He answered with open letters whose windy nonsense has been equalled but rarely even in the political history of our own good and eloquent land. "Crape the heavens with weeds of woe," he exclaims in the epistle to Henry Clay; "gird the earth with sackcloth, and let hell mutter one melody in commemoration of fallen splendour! For the glory of America has departed, and God will set a flaming sword to guard the tree of liberty, while such minttithing Herods as Van Buren, Boggs, Benton, Calhoun, and Clay are thrust out of the realms of virtue as fit subjects for the kingdom of fallen greatness -- vox reprobi, vox Diaboli."

He opens his mouth, shines his eyes, and leaves the result to God," said Abraham Lincoln of a ranting orator some years later. The description might be dated back to apply to Joseph Smith.

Smith had not waited on the hatching of this bird of eloquence before proceeding with his quest of the White House. On January 29, 1844, he was nominated at Nauvoo for President of the United States. The exact composition of this nominating body is uncertain. May 17 of the same year -- just a few days after publishing the letters to Clay and Calhoun -- this nomination was confirmed by something which passed for a state convention, also assembled at Nauvoo. In between these two events, Smith had published his "views" on national politics. He declared for the abolition of slavery by empowering the general government to purchase and liberate the slaves; for the annexation, not merely of Texas but of Canada and Mexico when they should ask for that blessing; and for a scheme of national banking that only another Urim and Thummim can make understandable. He wanted the pay of congressmen cut to $2.00 per day and board; but he suggested no reduction in the pay accorded to the President. On the contrary, the Presidential powers were to be exalted, not by changing the Constitution so much as by merely "taking" such powers as an inspired prophet in the White House might think worth having. "Congress, with the President as executor, is as almighty in its sphere as Jehovah is in his," he had stated in his letter to Calhoun; a statement which, coupled with his other outpourings, goes far to to substantiate the claim that Joseph Smith was the forerunner of Populists, and the great original New Nationalist.

There was no notion on Smith's part of trusting his campaign to letters and proclamations alone. He immediately organized -- or someone organized for him -- a campaign designed to reach every part of the United States. All the most able and aggressive officers of the church were sent out to drum up votes for the prophet, as formerly they had been sent to find recruits for Zion. Brigham Young, the sane counsellor; Orson Pratt, the ready orator; John D. Lee, unthinking fighter -- all these and scores of others were sent through the nation to organize support for the prophet's ambitions at the very hour when they were most needed to temper his course and protect his life at home.

William and Wilson Law, already mentioned in this history, were two of the wealthiest and most powerful members of the Mormon church. They had establish a saw-mill and flour-mill at Nauvoo, contributed to the building of the city and temple, and loaned the prophet a large sum of money. They were high in his favour for some years. William Law was made counsellor to Joseph and a member of the First Presidency, besides being registrar of the Nauvoo University. Wilson Law was regent of the university and major-general in the Nauvoo Legion. It was this pair, of all men in Nauvoo, whom Joseph had to quarrel with at this critical moment.

The revelation establishing polygamy was written down, as we have seen, July 12, 1843. The practice of polygamy antedated the revelation by at least two years. Brigham Young was married to one of his plural wives in June, 1842, and tradition agrees that the spouse then taken was the second to be received into this "new and everlasting covenant." The Laws were among the select number to whom the new doctrine was imparted; and they, seem to have rejected it with indignation from the first. They pointed out that polygamy is directly reprobated in the Book of Mormon, and combated what they claimed was vicious heresy. How long their opposition would have been confined to expostulation within the church cannot be known, for Joseph seems to have made the capital error of trying to secure Mrs. William Law as one of his spiritual wives.

By this time there must have been quite a collection of husbands at Nauvoo whose wives Joseph had sought to secure as stars in his spiritual crown. Such advances are deemed cause for personal vengeance in five American communities out of seven, even to this day. Had William Law taken a shotgun and scattered the prophet's brains on the pavement of the temple, he would have done only what dozens of men similarly offended have done before and since, with no worse penalty than that of being obliged to hear their own virtues set forth to a sympathetic jury. But the Laws were Canadians, trained in that strict discipline and stern obedience to law which are the glory of the British Empire; and they took what they deemed a milder course-though it proved quite as effective a one.

Joining with Sylvester Emmons, one of the few non-Mormons in Nauvoo, and Dr. R. D. Foster, who had had a similar score to settle with the prophet, the Law brothers determined to start a newspaper to expose the misdeeds of Smith, and secure a a reform of the church. Then protested themselves firm believers in the Book of Mormon and the Divine mission of the prophet at the beginning of his work, but they held that he had given himself over to the devil, and was now working iniquity. They chose the name Expositor for their paper, and its first and only issue justified the title. It told the story of the revelation establishing polygamy, and the prophet's method of teaching this doctrine to women converts. It condemned Smith's political aspirations. It charged him with financial crookedness. It demanded the immediate and unconditional repeal of the Nauvoo charter; and it pleaded with Mormons in general to abandon the false teachings of a plurality of gods and wives, and return to the primitive purity of the faith.

Mormon historians speak of the Expositor's charges as "filthy lies." The phrase is not a happy one. Aside from the fact that the Expositor merely charged Smith with practising doctrines set forth in a revelations till contained in the church's official book of faith, we may point out that lies alone never stirred up such a storm as was raised by the tales in the Expositor.

The first and likewise the last number of this paper was issued June 7, 1844. The next day, Smith called the city council together, and proceeded to put the Expositor and its editors on trial before that body. Zealous souls who condemn that separation of executive, judicial, and legislative functions which is the keynote of our government may read with profit the results of having those powers joined in the same person. Smith was mayor and president of the court; the council, aldermen, and councillors alike, were his disciples, and wholly obedient to his wish. Dr. Foster. Mr. Emmons, and the Law brothers were not present at this "trial" affecting their property and perhaps their safety. Evidence, argument, and hearsay were jumbled together. The session of this beautiful legislative-executive-judicial body lasted all day Saturday. June 8, and was continued to the following Monday. Finally, a resolution was passed declaring the Expositor a public nuisance, and "directing" Mayor Smith to abate that nuisance in any manner he might choose!

The beggars were on horseback, and they rode as beggars have been wont to do since before the proverb was coined. The destruction of which they had justly complained when it overtook their own Millennial Star in Missouri was to be visited on a printing-office which happened to offend them instead of the Gentiles. Smith issued an order to the city marshal, commanding him to destroy the press, "pi" the type, and burn all copies of the Expositor. The marshal took an escort from the Nauvoo Legion, broke into the Expositor building, and carried out his orders with joyous thoroughness. "The within-named press and type is destroyed and 'pied' according to order on this 10th day of June, 1844, at about 8 o'clock p.m.," he wrote on his return of the order.

In only one particular was the prophet's action better than that of the mob which had driven the Mormons from Independence, Missouri. That gathering had tarred and feathered a Mormon elder. Foster and the Laws were not hurt in any way, but they did not wait to see whether this immunity would last. That same night, June 10, they fled to Carthage, the county seat of Hancock county, where they swore out a complaint charging Smith and others with riot. Smith was arrested on this charge June 12, -- and immediately released on a writ of habeas corpus issued by his own municipal court.

Had Smith surrendered himself and been tried in the ordinary way, the result might have been damaging to his political aspirations, but in all probability his life would have been safe. His efforts to escape the courts led, as might have been expected, to an appeal to the mob. Mass-meetings were held in various parts of Hancock county, and at one of these, resolutions were passed calling for a war of extermination if the prophet were not surrendered. Munchausen-like stories of Mormon outrages ran from mouth to ear through all the surrounding country, armed men gathered at various places, cannon were ordered from larger towns, and an appeal was made to Governor Ford to call out the militia.

Governor Ford was a man of considerable intelligence and fair intentions, but wholly unfitted for dealing with a crisis like that which now confronted him. He arrived at Carthage June 21, heard the tales of the more rabid Gentiles, and sent to Nauvoo for the Mormons to send some one to make him acquainted with their side of the case. Both accounts agreed in the essential facts of the destruction of the Expositor and the release of Smith in defiance of the state courts. The governor put proper officials in command of the assembled militia, harangued the men, and received from them pledges that they would obey his commands and aid him in upholding the law. Upon this he sent word to Nauvoo that the prophet and those of his followers accused of riot would be protected if they surrendered, and be pursued by the whole force of the state if they did not. Smith preferred flight: but was persuaded by his followers to trust to the governor's promises. About midnight (June 21st), Joseph. Hyrum, and the other Mormons named in the complaint reached Carthage, and surrendered themselves to the law. All were admitted to bail the next noon, but the prophet and brother were immediately re-arrested on the charge of treason, and lodged in the county jail.

By this time the anti-Mormon sentiment of Hancock county had become so bitter that no legal prosecutions and penalties could satisfy it. A considerable number of Gentiles openly demanded the death of the prophet, and that his followers should be driven from the state by military force. The governor resisted this outrageous demand, but he took no effective measures to secure the safety of his prisoners, claiming afterwards that they were not in his custody, but in that of the sheriff. He disbanded all the militia except a company known as the "Carthage Grays" who, being residents of Hancock county and involved in the quarrel, were among the prophet's bitterest enemies. Setting this company to "guard" the jail in which the Smiths were confined, the governor, on June 27, set out to visit Nauvoo, and talk the Mormons into a right appreciation of the beauties of peace and submission to the law.

The same morning, several hundred militia from Warsaw, known as rabid Mormon haters, started to march to Carthage; from which point they expected to accompany other state troops in the occupation and perhaps, the sack of Nauvoo. On the way, they were met by a message from the governor ordering them to return to their homes, as the Nauvoo expedition had been given up. The more moderate men of the militia obeyed the order; the more violent continued their march toward Carthage. A few miles from town they received a note sent by the Carthage Grays, telling them that now was the time to kill the Smith, and that the way for that killing would be made ease.

Joseph, Hyrum, and two visiting brethren (Willard Richards and John Taylor) were sitting in a large room on the second floor of the jail when the armed mob approached. Only eight men and a sergeant had been left at the jail, and these made no resistance. Climbing the stairs and firing through the door of the room, the mob killed Hyrum Smith. Joseph had a six-shooter pistol which he emptied at the assailants, wounding three of them, and, a moment or two later, he made a rush to the window, and tried to leap out. His appearance brought a volley from the mob outside, and at the same time the attacking party burst into the room, and fired at the prophet from behind. He made the Masonic sign of distress, and then pitched headlong to the ground. Whether he was dead when he fell, or was killed in the yard by a final volley is a disputed point.

If Governor Ford meant to have the Mormon prophet murdered or kidnapped, his movements on the 26th and 27th of June are intelligible. If he meant to avert such a crime, his behavior becomes a mystery. He disbanded troops on whose loyalty he could rely, and left the prisoners in charge of the Carthage Grays, who had already mutinied at the favours shown the imprisoned prophet. He took no pains to see that the yet more violent men from Warsaw were turned back to their homes. He did not, as he might have done, send the prisoners to a distant county for safe-keeping until the excitement had subsided. He went to Nauvoo the day of the murder stayed long enough to establish an alibi, made a meaningless speech to the assembled Mormons, and hurried away without doing anything to justify or explain his trip. Though a pitifully weak man, Ford was by no means a fool. Either he was smitten with blindness, or he had been bullied and wheedled into leaving the coast clear for the mob -- probably on the pretext that the Smiths would not be harmed, but seized and sent over to Missouri.

The death of Smith was designed to destroy the Mormon church. That crime failed of its purpose, as mob outrages always fail. It removed an indolent, dreamy visionary from the head of Mormon affairs, and put in his place a grimly practical captain, with despotic temper and a will of flint. There has been on earth no better measure of the folly of a mob than the destruction of Joseph Smith to make room for Brigham Young.