The Founder of Mormonism/Chapter 10

Smith's varied activities during the fifteen years of his public life,^[1] give a final notion of the restlessness and instability of his character. It is impossible to gather up these scattered threads in one caption, but there is a common principle which binds together the events of 1830 with those of 1844. The prophet began his career with a revelation on communism, he ended it with what may be termed a revelation on matrimonial collectivism. The latter topic, in the nature of the case, can only be touched upon, but the former is important in showing the haphazard mental development of the man. Unlike his occultism, Joseph's socialism may be traced to certain formal movements of his day.^[2] Besides this source there was another mind as intermediary.

​But to consider the historic setting in its general aspects. Of the six communistic societies of the United States, considered worth treatment by the authorities a generation ago, only half could have influenced young Mormonism. The Icarians settled at Nauvoo, but that was after the Mormon exodus. In New York State the Perfectionists had their Oneida community, but this combination of polygamy and polyandry was not started until 1848. Six years before the German Inspirationists had their Amana community near Buffalo. These settlements may have given hints to Brigham Young the usurper, they were too late to influence Joseph Smith the founder.

Turning to the other communistic societies, it should be incidentally noticed that all but those on the Wabash were celibate in their tendencies. As early as 1828, the United Society of Believers claimed sixteen branches in the land, and four years before the publication of the Book of Mormon, their Groveland Society was started on the Genesee. That these rustic doctrinaires gave hints to young Joseph is an open question. In 1842, he spoke of the Shakers with but half-concealed contempt; at ​any rate, nine years previous they refused to affiliate with the Latter-day Saints. The remaining semi-socialistic groups were of small size, but of great influence on Mormonism—and that through the medium of Sidney Rigdon. Near Pittsburg, the scene of his earlier activities, the Rappists founded their New Harmony Society, in 1805; they moved from Pennsylvania to Indiana in 1814, and ten years after, sold out to Robert Dale Owen. Here comes in a most curious link between the father of English socialism and the man who was said to have 'invented' Mormonism.^[3] Rigdon was at one time hand in glove with the redoubtable Alexander Campbell, the same who had attacked Owen as an infidel, and had called his New Harmony Gazette, 'the focus of the lights of scepticism.'^[4] That Owen's free and easy ideas on marriage cropped out in the Mormon spiritual wife system is improbable, but his socialistic notions were already common property. In 1824, he made speeches before Congress; in 1829, he held an eight day debate with Alexander Campbell in Cincinnati, Ohio, at which 1,200 persons were said to be present. How the doctrines of Fourier worked their crooked way into Rigdon's cracked skull is a side issue: yet here, in the Western Reserve, there was a diluted ​socialism a decade before the Brook Farm experiment. In view of these things, Smith's claim to socialistic originality is absurd; his followers were no more troubled about the theory of the thing than a hive of bees; but the prophet's appropriation of Rigdon's socialistic ideas is as patent as his grafting of Rigdon's Kirtland branch into his own church.

The way the seer and revelator put a religious veneer on these borrowings is highly characteristic. Like the Separatists, who settled at Zoar, Ohio, in 1819, a score of families in Rigdon's locality had already formed themselves into a common stock company. Smith says that since Rigdon's Church at Kirtland 'had all things in common, the idea arose that this was the case with the Church of Jesus Christ.' He adds that 'the plan of "Common Stock" which had existed in what was called "the family," . . . was readily abandoned for the more perfect law of the Lord.' Of what this 'law for the government of the Church' consisted, is explained in a revelation of February, 1831:

The form which the law of the Lord ultimately took reads like a page from Gulliver's Travels; it is worth quoting, if only to show that the fancy of the Latter-day prophet was as weird as the mad dean's Kingdom of Laputa:—

But the prophet's schemes had a serious financial side. The first tithing, in 1834 is said to have been only a 'conditional covenant with the Lord.' This celestial application of the promissory note should be compared with the

​When Smith ridiculed the Millerites for their millennial fears, he had forgotten the early financial panic in his own church. In their haste to escape the wrath to come, many of the Saints sold their eastern possessions at a loss, and hastened to Zion as to the ark of safety,—'for after much tribulation cometh the blessings' said the prophet. A revelation of August, 1831, gives the details of the coming 'feast of fat things':—

The project on which the leaders slipped up was the Kirtland Safety Society Bank. There are occasionally to be seen the notes of this institution, signed—'J. Smith, Jr., Cashier, Sidney Rigdon, President. Some one has sardonically called attention to the engraving on these bank notes, representing a fleeced sheep. But the fancy does not come up to the fact. In entire conformity to the wild-cat speculations of ante-bellum days, the ​prophet announced that this bank would 'swallow up all other banks.' How it failed for $100,000,^[6] and how Smith took advantage of the bankruptcy laws is not half so illuminating as the way in which the church conference 'moved and seconded that the debts of Kirtland should come up no more.' Joseph's prophetic financeering was one of the reasons why the Mormons were at last driven from Ohio. But even the seer and revelator could not fool all the people, all the time. He opened up a subscription to the 'Nauvoo House,—a delightful habitation for man, and a resting place for the weary traveller.' But subscriptions came in slowly, for the thrifty Saints were not yet under the paw of Brigham. As Parley Pratt so plaintively remarked, 'a woman comes here and keeps her money sewed up in her stays, instead of entering into business with it.'

These communistic ambitions died hard. Backed up by restorationist expectations, they made an irresistible appeal to Joseph's imagination. Those Utopian schemes, that Josiah Quincy mentioned, had long been fermenting in the prophet's brain, and were now put on paper. If a literary comparison is allowable, Lord Verulam with his New Atlantis, or Campanella with his City of the Sun could not hold a candle to Smith with his new Mormon ​Zion, soon to arise on the Western Frontiers. By the revelation of June 25, 1833, a square mile of land was to be obtained and on it were to be built 'a house of the Lord for the presidency of the high and most holy priesthood after the order of Melchisedec; the sacred apostolic repository for the use of the bishop; the holy evangelical house, for the high priesthood of the holy order of God; house of the Lord for the elders of Zion; house of the Lord for the presidency of the high priesthood; house of the Lord for the high priesthood after the order of Aaron; house of the Lord for the teachers in Zion; house of the Lord for the deacons in Zion.'^[7]

​But the work dragged on; eight years later the prophet, writing from the city of Nauvoo, urged the brethren to come in without delay, for this was the corner-stone of Zion; 'here the Temple must be raised, the University built, and other edifices be erected which are necessary for the great work of the last days.' In the meantime, word was sent to 'the Saints in England who are extremely poor and ​not accustomed to the farming business . . . this place has advantages for manufacturing and commercial purposes, which but very few can boast of; and by establishing cotton factories, foundries, potteries etc., etc., would be the means of bringing in wealth and raising it to a very important elevation.'

At this time, the president of the church complained of being overwhelmed with a multiplicity of business. To run over his Journal, and to extract but one event a year, will give an idea of the number of irons he had in the fire. Besides the United Firm and the Safety Bank, he had already started the Literary Firm and the Mercantile Establishment. In 1833, he dedicated the printing office of the Latter-day Saints' Messenger and Advocate. In 1834, he organized the First High Council of the Church of Christ, with himself, Rigdon and Williams as the First Presidency. In 1835, he chose the Twelve Apostles, among whom were Brigham Young, the Lion of the Lord; Parley Pratt, the Archer of Paradise; and Lyman Wight, the Wild Ram of the Mountain. In 1836, Smith organized the several quorums, first the Presidency, then the Twelve, and the Seventy, also the counsellors of Kirtland and Zion. In 1837, he set apart apostles Kimball and Hyde to go to a mission to England, the first foreign mission of the Church. In 1838, ​during the Missouri troubles, he traveled as far away as Monmouth County, New Jersey, to strengthen the new branches. Returning to Missouri, and being confined in Liberty Jail, Clay County, he warned his followers against starting any more secret societies. In 1839, the prophet had his hands full in assisting fifteen thousand persecuted saints to escape from Missouri. In 1840, he succeeded in obtaining from the Illinois legislature charters for the City of Nauvoo, the University of Nauvoo, and the Nauvoo Legion.^[8]

Joseph Smith, junior, now gained a title of which he was immensely proud,—he became a lieutenant-general. 'Amid loud peals from the artilery,' runs the official account, 'accompanied by his aids-decamp and conspicuous strangers, he laid the chief corner-stone of the Temple of our God.' Joseph as a military bishop cuts a strange figure. Once when his companions in arms were in dread of the mob, who were disguised as Delaware Indians, 'the prophet came along and said "God and liberty is the watchword. Fear them not, for their hearts are cold as cucumbers."'^[9]

General Joseph Smith dressed in full uniform standing on the top of a house, brandishing his sword towards heaven, and delivering his last pub​lic speech,—this is Joseph the histrione.^[10] But to the rank and file life was not an opera bouffe. Their very enemies acknowledged their terrible sufferings undergone in Missouri, while in 1841 the Chicago Democrat regrets to learn that Illinois is beginning to persecute the saints in the Bounty Tract.^[11] Of the way the prophet became involved in politics, only brief notice can be given. While mayor of Nauvoo, Smith was accused of attempting to found a military church; he replied that the Nauvoo Legion was not got up for sinister or illegal purposes, yet in general orders he invites recruits ​from all his friends and adds in italics,—'If we desire to avoid insult we must be ready to repel it.'

It was as a political agitator that the prophet took up a rôle that indirectly led to his death. Nothing could show better the reach of his schemes than the following document:—

​To sum up Joseph's manifold worldly activities from his community storehouse in Ohio, to his proposition to establish a territorial government, within the bounds of the State of Illinois,^[12] to do this—is to run upon a paradox: he was jack-of-all trades, yet withal master of his followers. His death was counted a martyrdom; his name was speedily canonized; in his portraits a halo was drawn about his head. How the prophet gained his supremacy, how he met disaffection, how at the last his hold on the faithful became absolute, is a story that needs telling. Smith's relations to his aiders and abettors must here be touched upon. One defender says that Joseph's 'easy good-natured way, allowing every one was honest, drew around him hypocrites, false brethren, apostates; for they having mingled in his greatness, knew where and when to take advantage of his weakness.'

Relying on statements like these, some critics have explained the success of early Mormonism ​as due to Smith's luck in the choice of partners. As Harris had supplied the money, so Pratt supplied the eloquence, and Rigdon the brains. The antithesis is too neat to be true. Smith may have been the unwitting tool of the precious pair from Kirtland, yet from the first the author and proprietor of the Book of Mormon stood in the foreground. Again, to make Rigdon the chief actor, speaking through the mask of the prophet, is a self-contradiction. Thus the revelation of August, 1831, says, in part—'And now behold I say unto you, I the Lord am not pleased with my servant Sidney Rigdon, he exalted himself in his heart, and received not my counsel, but grieved the Spirit: wherefore his writing is not acceptable unto the Lord.' A little while after this, Smith thus rebuked, in his own name, another of his associates:—'William E. McLellin, the wisest man, in his own estimation, having more learning than sense, endeavored to write a commandment like unto one of the least of the Lord's, but failed. . . . The elders and all present, that witnessed this vain attempt, renewed their faith in the truth of the commandments and revelations which the Lord had given to the church through my instrumentality.'

But even before Rigdon and Company had appeared in New York State, Smith was asserting his supremacy. In the second conference of the church ​held at Fayette, while as yet only First Elder, Joseph succeeded in suppressing competition in occult activities. When Hyrum Page received revelations through his rival 'stone,' the prophet was 'in great distress of mind and body, and scarcely knew how to meet the exigency.' Newel Knight, who occupied the same room with him, goes on to say that, after considerable investigation and discussion, the prophet induced 'Brother Page, Oliver Cowdery and the Whitmers to renounce the bogus stone.'^[13] Soon after this, the same narrator proceeds, there was a division of feeling in the Colesville branch, because Sister Peck contradicted one of Joseph's revelations. The brethren and sisters were thereupon told that 'they must repent of what they had done, renew their covenants and uphold the authorities placed over them.'

But to hurry through the tale: In 1833, Smith was accused of seeking after monarchical power and authority; in pantomimic answer he instituted the ceremony of washing feet, 'girding himself with a towel and washing the feet of the elders.' In 1836, a great apostasy took place in the church at Kirtland, and within three years the Three Wit​nesses were cut off. In the excommunication David Whitmer, the anti-polygamist, is compared to Balaam's ass, Martin Harris is called a negro with a white skin, while all the 'disenters,' says the prophet 'are so far beneath my contempt that to notice any of them would be too great a sacrifice for a gentleman to make.'^[14]

In view of the fact that most Mormon converts were of Anglo-Saxon stock, it is almost inconceivable that Smith retained any influence over them.^[15] Yet in the midst of the Missouri troubles, ​of which the prophet was no small cause, the abnegation of the faithful remnant was well-nigh absolute. Governor Boggs, 'knave, butcher and murderer,' as Joseph called him, had just issued his 'exterminating order,' when the folowing episode took place, says Elder Stevenons:—'In order to show how particular the prophet was regarding the revelations which he received from the Lord, I will relate an incident which occurred in Liberty Jail. While the prophet was receiving a revelation, the late Bishop Alexander McRae was writing as Joseph received it. Upon this occasion Brother McRae suggested a slight change in the wording of the revelation, when Joseph sternly asked: "Do you know who you are writing for?" Brother McRae, who at once discovered his mistake, begged the prophet's pardon for undertaking to correct the word of the Lord.'^[16]

Smith spoke ex-cathedrâ; he also made assumptions as to temporal power. But theocracy was no sinecure in the far West. From the sentimental point of view, the persecutions of the Saints in ​Missouri mobs deservedly called out sympathetic mass-meetings in the East.^[17] As to the political merits of the case, the psychologist is obliged to make a Missouri compromise,—if some of the Borderers were ruffians, some of the Saints were sinners. But as regards the person of the founder of Mormonism, the conflict between church and state must have had far-reaching effects. As some outsider, who saw the prophet at the time, expressed it, 'Joseph Smith then endured bodily affliction and great mental suffering.' But Joseph's struggles with a cruel world were not confined to one year; they were spread over a dozen. From the time he was tarred and feathered in Ohio by 'a banditti of blacklegs, religious bigots, and cut-throats,' to the time he was 'kidnapped in Missouri through the diabolical rascality of Boggs,'—he was not only pestered with forty-nine civil suits, but was so harried about that once, when moving to a new place, he spoke of being attacked by 'the first regular mob.'

A final ticklish question now comes up. Considering Joseph Smith's abnormal ancestry, his emo​tional environment, and his lifelong instability, was not his mind, at the last, seriously affected?

The prophet's utterances within a few months of his death read like the utterances of a madman, yet political aspirations may have turned his head in only a figurative sense. His references to 'catamount politicians' and the 'imbecility of American statesmen' may have been the mere pleasantries of the stump-speaker, yet his acts during these times betoken more than a restless fancy. Again and again he went far out of his way in pursuit of his visionary aims. He called on President Van Buren, with a claim on the public treasury amounting to $1,381,044.55½. Having failed to obtain redress. from Congress, Smith penned a letter of inquiry to Henry Clay, asking: 'What will be your rule of action relative to us as a people, should fortune favor your ascension to the chief magistracy?'^[18] The reply from Ashland was courteous, but noncommittal. Smith thereupon retorted with an abusive letter, called the Whig candidate a black-leg, and—ran for President himself.

The Times and Seasons pushed the Smith-Rigdon ticket, and urged the Saints to vote for 'Joseph Smith, the smartest man in the United States.' On February 7th, 1844, the prophet completed his address entitled, Views of the Powers and Policy of ​the Government of the United States, reinforcing his arguments with quotations from various documents, authors and languages,—among others the Constitution, Addison, French, Webster, Italian, Adams the elder, Thomas Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Hebrew, the Magna Charta, Adams the younger, Jackson, Latin, Chaldean, Dutch and Greek.

Whether Smith was now actually demented is for the alienist to decide. But adding his latest utterances to his earliest visionary seizures, it is not too much to say that psychic coordination had disappeared, and that heredity had passed down those abnormal tendencies which mark the degenerate.^[19] One is not obliged to believe that Joseph's 'visions' were due to epilepsy of a masked variety. Heredity, as understood by the alienist, ignores any definite type of diseasc, yet it makes much of mental stigmata. Chief among these are marked sensuality, and exaggerated traits of vanity and self-conceit. In Smith's case there is abundant evidence of the former in his polygamous practices, but only the latter need here be instanced. The same visitor at Nauvoo, who had given a not unfavorable opinion of the prophet, speaks of him as a great egotist. 'He touched as usual on his peculiar doctrines, . . . became much excited, talked incessantly about himself, what he had done ​and could do more than other mortals, and remarked that he was 'a giant, physically and mentally.' This utterance was reported to have been made about a year before Smith's assassination, which occurred June 27th, 1844.

But the prophet's own written words are the final test of his mental condition. The statement of April, 1844, would be incredible, were it not corroborated by the statement of November, 1843:—