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

Occasionally, those accolades even came in verse:

Kinderhook, Kass, Kalhoun, nor Klay;

Kan never surely win the day.

But if you want to know who Kan,

You'll find in General Smith the man.49

Thus, despite Smith's awareness that his chances of victory were minuscule, he nevertheless took the time to develop a relatively rational and well-thought out platform, and invested a considerable amount of the church's resources (both human and financial) in advertising his campaign to non-Mormons who would not necessarily be sympathetic to his cause.

Indeed, despite the historiographical controversy concerning the genesis of Smith's ideas and his real intent in starting a church, by the time the Saints founded Nauvoo, the Mormon founder had developed a coherent and workable theory of government, authority, and power. Smith's politics were an odd conglomeration of seventeenth century religious communitarianism and eighteenth century natural rights philosophy, couched in the language of Jacksonian democracy. Like John Winthrop and many of the early Puritan settlers of America, Smith placed society's moral authority within the bounds of the community. Religion, ethics, and the development of group identity were all functions reserved for the church and the local government.

However, Smith recognized that America was a diverse society, and he highly valued the Constitution's guarantees of personal liberty. Indeed, the most important function of the federal government was to enforce those liberties. Ultimately though, Smith saw those liberties as applying primarily to individual communities more than they did to individual people. Therefore, people ought to have the right to join any community they so chose. Furthermore, it was incumbent upon the federal government to protect each community in the enjoyment of its Constitutional liberties. Smith saw the U.S. presidency as a guardian that must take upon itself the protection of the smallest and weakest of those communities from the often violent disapproval of its more powerful neighbors.

Thus, Smith could remark in the Nauvoo Neighbor of April 17, 1844 that "the world is governed too much, and there is not a nation or a dynasty now occupying the earth which acknowledges Almighty God as their lawgiver, and ... I go emphatically, virtuously, and humanely, for a Theodemocracy, where God and the people hold the power to conduct the affairs of men in righteousness."50 In Smith's eyes, this "theodemocracy" was the perfect democracy, where the government guaranteed all people the freedom to attach themselves to whatever moral community they desired. Thus, the people, through their elected government, wielded power which preserved liberty, while the community and its religious institutions undertook the development of public and private morality. A government, indeed, where God and the people seemed to rule together.

However, it would be the introduction of radical new doctrines into Mormonism during the Nauvoo period which would lead to the unraveling of Smith's "theodemocratic" principles, and, eventually, to the downfall of Mormonism in Illinois. The LDS church's open canon of scripture suggested the possibility that the next divine revelation might dramatically change the character of the faith. Such was the case with the doctrine of polygamy. As early as 1841 Smith had begun to teach the doctrine of plural marriage to the inner circle of Mormon leadership, and by 1843 he was recording his extra marriages in his journal.51 The introduction of polygamy into Mormonism had two major consequences. First of all, it introduced a large element of instability into Smith's political philosophy. If plural marriage were to be practiced within the LDS church, then suddenly the regulatory duties of the federal government were in direct conflict with the moral and spiritual mission of the community.