open the doors of his Nauvoo Mansion and laid out a huge banquet for all concerned. The perfidious Missouri sheriffs “were seated at the head of [the table] and served with the utmost kindness by Mrs. Smith in person,” a guest reported.
At a mass meeting in the “grove,” an open public area beneath the Temple hill, Joseph lauded Walker in front of thousands of his co-religionists. “I understand the gospel and you do not,” Smith proclaimed. “You understand the quackery of law, and I do not.”
With the August election just a few weeks away, Joseph made an unfortunate discovery. His brother Hyrum had been serving in the Illinois legislature and had promised the Mormon votes to the Democratic candidate, Joseph Hoge. Both Walker and Hoge spent the campaign’s final days electioneering in Nauvoo, and the situation turned awkward. The secular
Nauvoo Neighbor
suggested that the Saints vote in a unanimous bloc, further recommending that they vote for Hoge. Then God intervened. On Saturday evening, just two days before the election, Hyrum Smith rose to address the Saints in the grove and made a startling announcement: He “knew from knowledge that would not be doubted, from evidences that never fail, that Mr. Hoge was the man.” Hyrum raised both arms and brandished a yellow ballot printed on wrapping paper. “Those that vote this ticket, this flesh colored ticket, the Democratic ticket, shall be blessed,” he declared. “Those who do not shall be accursed. Thus saith the Lord.”
William Law, one of Joseph’s two counselors in the First Presidency, questioned Hyrum’s vision. Law told the assembled Saints he was certain that Joseph wanted Walker for the congressional seat and that “the prophet was more likely to know the mind of the Lord on the subject than the patriarch.” This was a rare public feud in the top echelon of the church leadership. Law, Taylor, and Hyrum were all apostles, and also members of the secret Council of Fifty. Law was effectively third in command to Joseph, and Hyrum was the church patriarch, a nebulous leadership post previously held by the men’s father, Joseph Smith Sr. The Prophet would have to be heard from, and soon.
The next day, on the eve of the election, Joseph allowed Apostle Parley Pratt to deliver the Sunday sermon. Then Smith approached the stand and told the Saints he would talk about the election. “I am above the kingdoms of the world, for I have no laws,” he announced. “I am not come to tell you to vote this way, that way or the other.” William Law was wrong, he said. “I never authorized him to tell my private feelings.”
Joseph praised Cyrus Walker in a backhanded manner and told the Saints that he intended to vote for his lawyer. But “Brother Hyrum tells me this morning that he has had a testimony to the effect it would be better for the people to vote for Hoge; and I never knew Hyrum to say he ever had a revelation and it failed. Let God speak and all men hold their peace.” Joseph offered the Saints a choice, to vote for his lawyer or to follow the will of God.
The results were foreordained. Hoge won election from Illinois’s newly created Sixth Congressional District by 474 votes. An estimated 3,000 Mormons voted for him. The Whigs were apoplectic, but the Democrats had learned a lesson, too. The Mormons would promise both sides their votes, then throw the election in the direction they chose at the eleventh hour. The anti-Mormon party was back in business, and a meeting attended by 200 old settlers in Carthage shortly after the election condemned Joseph, the “pretended prophet” and “dangerous individual . . . claiming to set aside, by his vile and blasphemous lies, all those moral and religious institutions which have been established by the Bible.” This “modern Caligula . . . [has] been able to place himself at the head of a numerous horde, either equally reckless and unprincipled as himself, or else made his pliant tools by the
At a mass meeting in the “grove,” an open public area beneath the Temple hill, Joseph lauded Walker in front of thousands of his co-religionists. “I understand the gospel and you do not,” Smith proclaimed. “You understand the quackery of law, and I do not.”
With the August election just a few weeks away, Joseph made an unfortunate discovery. His brother Hyrum had been serving in the Illinois legislature and had promised the Mormon votes to the Democratic candidate, Joseph Hoge. Both Walker and Hoge spent the campaign’s final days electioneering in Nauvoo, and the situation turned awkward. The secular
Nauvoo Neighbor
suggested that the Saints vote in a unanimous bloc, further recommending that they vote for Hoge. Then God intervened. On Saturday evening, just two days before the election, Hyrum Smith rose to address the Saints in the grove and made a startling announcement: He “knew from knowledge that would not be doubted, from evidences that never fail, that Mr. Hoge was the man.” Hyrum raised both arms and brandished a yellow ballot printed on wrapping paper. “Those that vote this ticket, this flesh colored ticket, the Democratic ticket, shall be blessed,” he declared. “Those who do not shall be accursed. Thus saith the Lord.”
William Law, one of Joseph’s two counselors in the First Presidency, questioned Hyrum’s vision. Law told the assembled Saints he was certain that Joseph wanted Walker for the congressional seat and that “the prophet was more likely to know the mind of the Lord on the subject than the patriarch.” This was a rare public feud in the top echelon of the church leadership. Law, Taylor, and Hyrum were all apostles, and also members of the secret Council of Fifty. Law was effectively third in command to Joseph, and Hyrum was the church patriarch, a nebulous leadership post previously held by the men’s father, Joseph Smith Sr. The Prophet would have to be heard from, and soon.
The next day, on the eve of the election, Joseph allowed Apostle Parley Pratt to deliver the Sunday sermon. Then Smith approached the stand and told the Saints he would talk about the election. “I am above the kingdoms of the world, for I have no laws,” he announced. “I am not come to tell you to vote this way, that way or the other.” William Law was wrong, he said. “I never authorized him to tell my private feelings.”
Joseph praised Cyrus Walker in a backhanded manner and told the Saints that he intended to vote for his lawyer. But “Brother Hyrum tells me this morning that he has had a testimony to the effect it would be better for the people to vote for Hoge; and I never knew Hyrum to say he ever had a revelation and it failed. Let God speak and all men hold their peace.” Joseph offered the Saints a choice, to vote for his lawyer or to follow the will of God.
The results were foreordained. Hoge won election from Illinois’s newly created Sixth Congressional District by 474 votes. An estimated 3,000 Mormons voted for him. The Whigs were apoplectic, but the Democrats had learned a lesson, too. The Mormons would promise both sides their votes, then throw the election in the direction they chose at the eleventh hour. The anti-Mormon party was back in business, and a meeting attended by 200 old settlers in Carthage shortly after the election condemned Joseph, the “pretended prophet” and “dangerous individual . . . claiming to set aside, by his vile and blasphemous lies, all those moral and religious institutions which have been established by the Bible.” This “modern Caligula . . . [has] been able to place himself at the head of a numerous horde, either equally reckless and unprincipled as himself, or else made his pliant tools by the
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