joseph smith for president of the united states—an inspired candidate —his views of the powers and policy of the general government—how the country could have saved the carnage of war.
for president of the united states: joseph smith, of illinois.
this was the announcement made to the world in the opening of 1844, from nauvoo. at a political meeting held there on the 29th day of january, joseph was nominated and on the 17th day of may, at a state convention held in the same place the nomination was sustained.
such a candidacy was not assumed at such a time without careful and lengthy deliberation. its purpose was less to secure political fame or elevation for the prophet, than to bring his patriotic and statesmanlike ideas before the world, and to force the sufferings of the saints upon the attention of the thinking men throughout the land.
joseph's views of government, its powers and duties, his knowledge of the steps by which the nation could retrace its way from the gulf into which it was being plunged, were far in advance of his time. the recreancy and the moral cowardice of many of the public men in the republic who were aspirants for that high station, called for some rebuke; for many of them were deliberately precipitating the evils which soon deluged the land with blood, and others through fear were skulking from the face of this danger. it was time for a declaration of truth from a man who not only had the prophetic foresight but who had the courage to declare for justice. viewed from the standpoint of politicians, the candidacy of the prophet was hopeless in 1844. what it might have been if he had lived and it had been renewed at a later time, when the best minds of the nation could have grasped and advocated the noble principles which he enunciated, and thinking men throughout the length and breadth of the land could have seen that this was the way of all others for escape from war, let the student of history decide. certain it is, that had joseph smith been elected president of the united states and been sustained by congress in his policy, this land would have been spared the desolating woe which filled its hamlets and fields with carnage and its homes with sobbing widows and orphans.
from this same state of illinois a backwoodsman came sixteen years later to settle the national dispute and save the union by the stern arbitrament of the sword, for by this time the paltering politicians of the schools were by the mighty voice of the people set aside. this man, raised up by providence for the task, and with the courage to do, was the nation's support and rescuer in 1861-65. but had the nation accepted joseph smith, with the views which he proclaimed and with the divine prescience upon him, he would have proved, in 1845-49, the republic's savior. peaceful methods would have prevailed, and columbia would have been spared the most bloody and costly civil war of which profane history gives any account.
looking back upon that time of the war after nearly a generation has past, men are prone to think less of the agonies of the strife; they begin to feel that it was necessary; to feel that the republic is stronger because cemented by the blood of brother who fell under brother's hand and by the tears of the widow and the fatherless. to sense the full beneficence which joseph smith might have wrought, let the patriot project his mind into the future and think if peril impended today how much better to save the country and the constitution by heroic statesmanship than by military valor.
the sentiment which permitted the persecutions in missouri and illinois to go unchecked and unredressed was rapidly ripening for the greater strife. joseph saw this. when he permitted his name to be used he said to his friends:
i would not have suffered my name to have been used by my friends on anywise as president of the united states or candidate for that office, if i and my friends could have had the privilege of enjoying our religious and civil rights as american citizens, even those rights which the constitution guarantees unto all her citizens alike. but this we as a people have been denied from the beginning. persecution has rolled upon our heads from time to time from portions of the united states, like peals of thunder, because of our religion; and no portion of the government as yet has stepped forward for our relief. and under view of these things, i feel it to be my right and privilege to obtain what influence and power i can, lawfully, in the united states, for the protection of injured innocence; and if i lose my life in a good cause, i am willing to be sacrificed on the altar of virtue, righteousness and truth, in maintaining the laws and constitution of the united states, if need be, for the general good of mankind.
joseph had not allowed this candidacy to be announced until every effort had been made to impress the leading politicians of the day with a sense of national peril and with recognition of the means by which overhanging disaster might be dissipated. late in 1843 and in the opening of 1844, he held correspondence with clay, calhoun, van buren, cass and others, in which his own courage and exalted ideas of government come in contradistinction to the sycophantic and excessive caution of time-serving politicians.
he hit calhoun, the champion of states rights, on a tender spot, and used the woes of the saints for an illustration when he said:
your second paragraph leaves you naked before yourself, like a likeness in a mirror, when you say that "according to your view, the federal government is one of limited and specific powers," and has no jurisdiction in the case of the mormons. so then a state can at any time expel any portion of her citizens with impunity, and, in the language of mr. van buren, frosted over with your gracious "views of the case," though the cause is ever so just, government can do nothing for them, because it has no power.
go on, then, missouri, after another set of inhabitants (as the latter-day saints did) have entered some two or three hundred thousand dollars, worth of land, and made extensive improvements thereon; go on, then, i say, banish the occupants or owners, or kill them, as the mobbers did many of the latter-day saints, and take their land and property as spoil; and let the legislature, as in the case of the mormons, appropriate a couple of hundred thousand dollars to pay the mob for doing that job; for the renowned senator from south carolina, mr. j. c. calhoun, says the powers of the federal government are so specific and limited that it has no jurisdiction of the case! o ye people who groan under the oppression of tyrants! ye exiled poles, who have felt the iron hand of russian grasp!—ye poor and unfortunate among all nations! come to the asylum of the oppressed; buy ye lands of the general government; pay in your money to the treasury to strengthen the army and the navy; worship god according to the dictates of your own consciences; pay in your taxes to support the great heads of a glorious nation; but remember, a 'sovereign state' is so much more powerful than the united states, the parent government, that it can exile you at pleasure, mob you with impunity, confiscate your lands and property, have the legislature sanction it,—yea, even murder you as an edict of an emperor, and it does no wrong; for the noble senator of south carolina says the power of the federal government is so limited and specific, that it has no jurisdiction of the case. what think ye of imperium in imperio?
and to clay he said:
true greatness never wavers; but when the missouri compromise was entered into by you for the benefit of slavery, there was a shrinkage of western honor.
soon after his nomination was promulgated, he wrote an address to the american people containing his views of the powers and policy of the government of the united states. it was something new in the way of political platforms. ignoring the evasions and the platitudes with which the scheming and shifting talk of the day was burdened, he uttered burning words of patriotism and statesmanship upon the issues which were then paramount in the land. with the acceptance of his plans, the slave question might have been settled without the effusion of blood and at an expense infinitely less than that of war; and rebellion in any state might have been instantly crushed under the national heel. the following paragraphs are from his address:
born in a land of liberty, and breathing an air uncorrupted with the sirocco of barbarous climes, i ever feel a double anxiety for the happiness of all men, both in time and in eternity.
my cogitations, like daniel's, have for a long time troubled me, when i viewed the condition of men throughout the world, and more especially in this boasted realm, where the declaration of independence "holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" but at the same time some two or three millions of people are held as slaves for life, because the spirit of them is covered with a darker skin than ours; and hundreds of our own kindred for an infraction, or supposed infraction, of some overwise statute, have to be incarcerated in dungeon glooms, or suffer the more moral penitentiary gravitation of mercy in a nutshell, while the duelist, the debauchee, and the defaulter for millions and other criminals, take the uppermost rooms at feasts, or, like the bird of passage, find a more congenial clime by flight.
the wisdom which ought to characterize the freest, wisest and most noble nation of the nineteenth century, should, like the sun in its meridian splendor, warm every object beneath its rays; and in main efforts of her officers, who are nothing more or less than the servants of the people, ought to be directed to ameliorate the condition of all, black or white, bond or free; for the best of books says, god "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth."
our common country presents to all men the same advantages, the same facilities, the same prospects, the same honors, and the same rewards; and without hypocrisy, the constitution, when it says, "we, the people of the united states in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the united states of america," meant just what it said without reference to color or condition, ad infinitum.
the aspirations and expectations of a virtuous people, environed with so wise, so liberal, so deep, so broad, and so high a character of equal rights as appears in said constitution, ought to be treated by those to whom the administration of the laws is entrusted with as much sanctity as the prayers of the saints are treated in heaven, that love, confidence and union, like the sun, moon and stars, should bear witness,
(for ever singing as they shine.)
the hand that made us is divine!
unity is power; and when i reflect on the importance of it to the stability of all governments, i am astounded at the silly moves of persons and parties to foment discord in order to ride into power on the current of popular excitement; nor am i less surprised at the stretches of power or restrictions of right which too often appear as acts of legislators to pave the way to some favorite political scheme as destitute of intrinsic merit as a wolf's heart is of the milk of human kindness.
* * * * * * *
now, o people! people! turn unto the lord and live, and reform this nation. frustrate the designs of wicked men. reduce congress at least two-thirds. two senators from a state and two members to a million of population will do more business than the army that now occupy the halls of the national legislature. pay them two dollars and their board per diem (except sundays). that is more than the farmer gets, and he lives honestly. curtail the officers of the government in pay, number and power; for the philistine lords have shorn our nation of its goodly locks in the lap of delilah.
* * * * * * *
advise your legislators, when they make laws for larceny, burglary, or any felony, to make the penalty applicable to work upon roads, public works, or any place where the culprit can be taught more wisdom and more virtue, and become more enlightened. rigor and seclusion will never do as much to reform the propensities of men as reason and friendship. murder only can claim confinement or death. let the penitentiaries be turned into seminaries of learning, where intelligence, like the angels of heaven, would banish such fragments of barbarism. imprisonment for debt is a meaner practice than the savage tolerates, with all his ferocity. amor vincit omnia.
petition, also, ye goodly inhabitants of the slave states, your legislators to abolish slavery by the year 1850, or now, and save the abolitionist from reproach and ruin, infamy and shame.
pray congress to pay every man a reasonable price for his slaves out of the surplus revenue arising from the sale of public lands and from the deduction of pay from the members of congress.
break off the shackles from the poor black man, and hire him to labor like other human beings; for "an hour of virtuous liberty on earth is worth a whole eternity of bondage." abolish the practice in the army and navy of trying men by court-martial for desertion. if a soldier or marine runs away, send him his wages, with this instruction, that his country will never trust him again; he has forfeited his honor.
make honor the standard with all men. be sure that good is rendered for evil in all cases, and the whole nation, like a kingdom of kings and priests, will rise up in righteousness, and be respected as wise and worthy on earth, and as just and holy for heaven, by jehovah, the author of perfection.
more economy in the national and state governments would make less taxes among the people; more equality through the cities, towns and country, would make less distinction among the people; and more honesty and familiarity in societies, would make less hypocrisy and flattery in all branches of the community; and open, frank, candid decorum to all men, in this boasted land of liberty, would beget esteem, confidence, union and love; and the neighbor from any state, or from any country, of whatever color, clime or tongue, could rejoice when he put his foot on the sacred soil of freedom, and exclaim, the very name of "american" is fraught with friendship. oh, then, create confidence! restore freedom! break down slavery! banish imprisonment for debt, be in love, fellowship and peace, with all the world! remember that honesty is not subject to law: the law was made for transgressors.
* * * * * * *
give every man his constitutional freedom, and the president full power to send an army to suppress mobs, and the state authority to repel and impugn that relic of folly which makes it necessary for the governor of a state to make the demand of the president for troops, in case of invasion or rebellion.
the governor himself may be a mobber; and instead of being punished, as he should be, for murder or treason, he may destroy the very lives, rights and property he should protect.
* * * * * * *
as to the contiguous territories of the united states, wisdom would direct no tangling alliance. oregon belongs to this government honorably; and when we have the red man's consent, let the union spread from the east to the west sea; and if texas petitions congress to be adopted among the sons of liberty, give her the right hand of fellowship, and refuse not the same friendly grip to canada and mexico. and when the right arm of freemen is stretched out in the character of a navy for the protection of rights, commerce and honor, let the iron eyes of power watch from maine to mexico, and from california to columbia. thus may union be stretched, and foreign speculation prevented from opposing broadside to broadside.
seventy years have done much for this goodly land. they have burst the chains of oppression and monarchy, and multiplied its inhabitants from two to twenty millions, with a proportionate share of knowledge keen enough to circumnavigate the globe, draw the lightning from the clouds, and cope with all the crowned heads of the world.
the southern people are hospitable and noble. they will help to rid so free a country of every vestige of slavery, whenever they are assured of an equivalent for their property.
* * * * *
we have had democratic presidents, whig presidents, a pseudo-democratic-whig president, and now it is time to have a president of the united states: and let the people of the whole union, like the inflexible romans, whenever they find a promise made by a candidate that is not practiced as an officer, hurl the miserable sycophant from his exaltations as god did nebuchadnezzar, to crop the grass of the field with a beast's heart among the cattle.
* * * * *
in the united states the people are the government, and their united voice is the only sovereign that should rule, the only power that should be obeyed, and the only gentlemen that should be honored at home and abroad, on the land and on the sea. wherefore, were i the president of the united states by the voice of a virtuous people, i would honor the old paths of the venerated fathers of freedom. i would walk in the tracks of the illustrious patriots who carried the ark of the government upon their shoulders with an eye single to the glory of the people; and when that people petitioned to abolish slavery in the slave states, i would use all honorable means to have their prayers granted, and give liberty to the captive by paying the southern gentlemen a reasonable equivalent for his property, that the whole nation might be free indeed!
* * * * *
and when the people petitioned to possess the territory of oregon, or any other contiguous territory, i would bend the influence of a chief magistrate to grant so reasonable a request, that they might extend the mighty efforts and enterprise of a free people from the east to the west sea, and make the wilderness blossom as the rose. and when a neighboring realm petitioned to join the union of the sons of liberty, my voice would be, come—yea, come, texas; come, mexico; come, canada; and come, all the world; let us be brethren, let us be one great family, and let there be a universal peace.
abolish the cruel customs of prisons (except in certain cases), penitentiaries, court-martials for desertion; and let reason and friendship reign over the ruins of ignorance and barbarity; yea, i would, as the universal friend of man, open the prisons, open the eyes, open the ears, and open the hearts of all people, to behold and enjoy freedom—unadulterated freedom; and god, who once cleansed the violence of the earth with a flood, whose son laid down his life for the salvation of all his father gave him out of the world, and who has promised that he will come and purify the world again with fire in the last days, should be supplicated by me for the good of all people.[1]
to enunciate the prophet's views for the salvation of the republic, the twelve apostles and other leading elders were sent throughout the land. it was a long parting with joseph for most of the twelve. one of their number, wilford woodruff, says:
joseph looked upon me long and mournfully. i shall never forget his look. it was as though he was bidding us an eternal farewell.