I call upon you to repent of your sins and flee to this ... I call upon you thus that you may rise up and say Ursulia you knew all this ... Ophelia did I not spew the profhecy spoken by Joseph Smith by the authority of Jesus Christ concerning the overthrow of the United States - the destruction of the states as a nation is just as sure as the sun will ever rise and set - it is near at hand, it is all ready to burst upon it.This letter provides interesting additional confirmation for a prophecy that Joseph Smith uttered on at least three known occasions in 1843 and 1844: once while dining with Stephen Douglas in Carthage, Illinois, once before the US Congress, and once during a meeting of the Council of Fifty. On the first occasion, when dining with Douglas, Smith reportedly said,
I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left for their wickedness in permitting the murder of men, women and children, and the wholesale plunder and extermination of thousands of her citizens to go unpunished, thereby perpetrating a foul and corroding blot upon the fair fame of this great republic, the very thought of which would have caused the high-minded and patriotic framers of the Constitution of the United States to hide their faces with shame. (DHC 5:393-94)On the second occasion, before Congress, Smith "prophesied, by virtue of the holy Priesthood vested in me, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that, if Congress will not hear our petition and grant us protection, they shall be broken up as a government, and god shall damn them. And there shall nothing be left of them - not even a grease spot" (Millennial Star v.22, p. 455).
On the third occasion, in the Council of Fifty, Smith reportedly "prophecied the entire overthrow of this nation in a few years" (George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995], 129).
Mormonism is often viewed as an unreservedly patriotic and quintessentially American movement. While this is partly true, there is also a strong Mormon tradition of prophetic critique of the United States. In good Puritan style, the early Mormons viewed the United States as a chosen but apostate people, and themselves as the "saving remnant". Klaus Hansen has described this as a "higher patriotism". Their allegiance was to the United States as it is meant to be, rather than to the United States as it actually is. The prophetic critique of America remained popular among Mormons until after the revocation of polygamy in 1890, after which the Church undertook to revise its image in a more patriotic direction.
10 comments:
I recall reading somewhere that it wasn't without a bit of bitter satisfaction that Brigham Young in Salt Lake learned of the outbreak of the Civil War. That there was a bit of sentiment in Utah that the United States "had it coming to them."
Can't verify the source though.
I wouldn't be at all surprised, Seth. It was just a few years earlier that the US had invaded Utah. They weren't exactly on the best of terms at the time!
I seems to me that Smith himself was not very patriotic as a person. Government hadn't done a lot to help him through his life. He was sued countless times, arrested many times, had his business organizations fail to be registered and his ambitions were ignored.
An interesting paper may be on Smith's view of the US government as a result of his life experiences.
That's interesting stuff. I think this goes along with Joseph and and early saint's belief that God's government / kingdom as defined by Mormonism was to be "restored".
I think Smith's bid for the Presidency was primarily a move of self-defense. Nothing else had worked to protect his people from violence. He figured snagging the Oval Office would do the trick.
I think even he knew it was a long shot.
I agree, Seth. However cataclysmic Smith's view of government, he could also be remarkably pragmatic about it. When he thought he could turn it to his own ends, he didn't hesitate to try. He even told his followers in the D&C to try to make "friends with Mammon".
Wasn't one of his policies was to send the slaves back to Africa. Imagine if that had happened. No Civil war, lynchings, Civil Rights movement, no Obama (or Michelle - I understand she is descended from slaves)
He may have talked about it. A lot of people with abolitionist sentiment talked that way back then.
I do know one of his policies was to purchase the freedom of all slaves with sale of Louisianna Purchase land.
What Seth said.
Well, according to FAIR, "one author" seems to indicate that the wounds WERE redressed by the government.
"The prophecy as worded is obviously a conditional one. The United States did redress the Latter-day Saints to some extent for wrongs committed against them and thus the harshness of the fate of Missouri (or the United States) was reduced. The United States inviting the Saints to volunteer five hundred men to help in the 1846 war with Mexico might be considered partial redress because it provided desperately needed funds for the Latter-day Saints to finance the pioneer trek to Utah. President Polk at this time also promised Latter-day Saints safety as they travelled through Indian lands to the west. When the personal papers of James K. Polk, the U.S. president who asked Latter-day Saints to form a Mormon Battalion, were recently opened, it was found that he considered his action to help the Latter-day Saints. The granting of territorial status to the Mormons might also be considered a partial redress for wrongs."
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