General Joseph Smith

Laurel Lawrence’s class 2/14/19

The saints were able to live in Nauvoo in peace for about 3 years. Joseph Smith was heavily involved in all aspects of life there – father, husband, building their 1^st ever home, prophet, general of the Nauvoo Legion, and helping build Nauvoo. He was frequently seen working at the temple alongside all the others.

One of his favorite sayings was, “Just Yankee Doodle Do It!”. He liked getting things done and encouraged others to be anxiously engaged in good works.

Sidenote: the song Yankee Doodle Dandy was created by the British troops to make fun of the Yankees. They sang it to them in derision. But the pilgrims took it and made it their own theme song. They would sing it loudly to the Brits whenever they, the Yankees won a battle. The line that says, “stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni.” Refers to in those days a slang word for jewels was macaroni, so the song says the Yankees called a feather macaroni means the yanks were so dumb they even though a feather was like a jewel or expensive adornment.

Joseph felt an urgency to start performing the temple ordinances, specifically endowments before the temple was completed. He used the upper floor of the Red Brick Store  where he had a mural painted, added trees and plants to make it look like an ordinance room. He had learned the “new” concept that families can be forever, and all the saints were excited to hear that and wanted the ordinance for it.

Whenever we begin to build temples, Hell’s bells ring. Every time we have a stake or general conference, Satan holds one, too. (Harold B Lee)

Satan targeted destroying Joseph Smith as he always targets the living prophet, so he stirred up the apostate saints against Joseph. One of the new converts of this time was John C Bennet. He was very popular. He was a great speaker and writer. He was the first mayor of Nauvoo and everyone loved him. Emma was the only one who thought something was wrong with him and didn’t trust him.

When Joseph was teaching plural marriage, he would go to a man privately and teach him, then ask him to pray about it. When he went to John C Bennett, John was enraged. He rejected it without praying. He was indignant and from that time fought against Joseph. John had a wife and child back east that he had abandoned, and he frequently had affairs with other women, which he called “spiritual wifery”. H was very against the law of plural marriage that teaches to protect, provide for and love another woman, but instead practiced adultery under a “special name” which did not protect or provide for, but just used women with no commitment.

So he was booted as mayor and kicked out of Nauvoo. Joseph replaced him as mayor. He was committed from then on to destroy Joseph. He spoke publicly and wrote newspaper articles against him. Since he was charismatic and popular, people liked what he said and believed him. One of those people was William Law, who had also been excommunicated for adultery. They, with others, met secretly to find ways to destroy Joseph.

Governer boggs, who had ordered the extermination order, got shot in the head but survived. He accused Joseph Smith, and John Bennett and William Law publicized the accusation, but at Joseph Smith had an alibi that was irrefutable, so he was dismissed as a suspect. Then John Bennett and William Law created a story and wrote an article that Joseph had hired someone else to shoot Boggs – Porter Rockwell.

Porter Rockwell and Joseph Smith were childhood friends. Joseph told Porter to never cut his hair as a covenant to God, and that as long as he didn’t cut his hair and kept his covenants, his life would be protected. He only ever cut his hair once when someone needed hair to make a wig.

The persecution for Bennett’s article was so intense that Joseph and Porter had to hide out on an island on the Mississippi. While he was there he received revelation and wrote D&C 128 and encouraged the saints to continue the work on the temple. He told them that whatever is not recorded on earth will not be recorded in heaven. They had been a little lax about keeping records of all ordinances done, so that taught them the importance of it and to be diligent about it.

Joseph and Porter were finally acquitted and he returned home to a big celebration. Everyone was so happy to have him back. Joseph said he was more worried about the traitors in the Church than the apostates. He said, “they can leave the Church, but they can’t leave the Church alone.”

In 1843 Nauvoo was the largest city in Illinois with over 10,000 people. The home Joseph built was called the Mansion House. He only got to live there 6 months before he was martyred. 

They invited Lucy Mack Smith to live with them. Soon after she got there, she became very sick and almost died. Joseph and Emma would take turns staying up all night with her and caring for her. She wrote of their love and devotion. She lived on after that to an advanced age.

The 1844 Presidential election year, Joseph and other leaders looked for a good candidate. The candidates knew that Nauvoo was a major deciding vote, but when Joseph asked each of them if they would help the saints recover their losses in Missouri, they would all say there was nothing they could do.

So Joseph decided to create a platform and run for President. He knew he could not win, but by running, he could force the other candidates to respond to his campaign.

The two parties at the time were the Whigs and the Democrats. Joseph ran as an Independent. He printed a pamphlet called General Smith’s views of policies.

His platform:

Abolish slavery by the year 1850. If they had done this they could have prevented the Civil War. The plan was that the government would buy the slaves using money from the sale of western lands and educate them. It would have cost the government way less than the war cost and lives would have been saved.

Reduce Congress by 2/3 and lower their salaries. He thought it was insane that they were paid more than farmers or teachers.

He stood for prison reform – to educate non-violent prisoners; to not have a debtor’s prison, but to let those debtors out of prison and make them work to repay what they owed. He wanted to make the prisons places of learning and work to rehabilitate the prisoners.

He wanted to accept Texas and Oregon into the Union and to work with the Indians instead of fighting them.

He wanted to create a national standard of currency instead of each state having their own currency so people could purchase and trade from state to state.

Joseph sent out hundreds of men as good will missionaries. They carried the pamphlets and talked to people about Joseph’s platform. As they did, the views were very popular. It made people curious about the Church and was a good missionary tool and created a lot of good will for the Church.  Many non-members were in favor of Joseph Smith for president. Some newspapers wrote articles very favorable articles about him for president.

The last year of his life, Joseph knew his days were numbered. He called a meeting of the Council of the Twelve and gave them all the sealing powers so they could lead the Church. Afterwards, Joseph said he felt “as light as a cork”. It was a huge weight lifted off him.

Also in 1844, the apostates organized their own Church. William Law was the president. They bought a printing press that they used to print anti-Mormon literature. It was called the Nauvoo Expositor and was trashy. They wrote that Joseph Smith was the blackest sinner and compared him to Nero – that he was God-forsaken full of lies and trouble.

It was common in those days that if the majority of people felt a group was printing bad literature, they would burn down the printing press. It had happened to the Mormons 20 or more times and nobody was ever punished for it. So the City council declared the Nauvoo Expositor a nuisance and burned it down.

But this time Bennett and others decided to take Joseph to trial for it. They convinced the governor that he couldn’t get a “fair” trial in Nauvoo and that he should be tried in Carthage. 

So an arrest warrant was issued for Joseph and Hyrum.

Joseph decided he had 3 choices:

1.    Submit to be arrested, in which case he knew he would be convicted and killed.

2.    Lead the saints west

3.    Hide.

So he and Hyrum went into hiding. Many protected him, but others called him a coward. He was devastated for this accusation and said, “If my life is of no worth to my friends, then it is of no worth to me.” He was very hurt.

He talked to Hyrum and they decided to surrender. They said “We will go back and we will be butchered.”

Before crossing the river to Carthage, he turned back to the saints and said, “Love one another.” That was his last counsel for them.