I am in the middle of Michael Quinn's book and he makes the point that Joseph was making decisions to give it all up the last few weeks (burning the polygamy revelaion, having everyone get rid of thier garments). It makes me wonder, if Joseph decided to not go back to Carthridge, that he perhaps he would have distanced himself, or even quit, from the church he created.

Brigham Young actually seems more radical the Smith did.

Which book is this?

Mormonism: Origins of Power

Michael Quinn has authored or edited several books. Which one are you referring to so we can respond directly to your question?

Some people have inferred that. There is a quote showing he realized the toll "spiritual wifery" was having. Of course I read that in a RLDS site arguing that he was just trying to clean up the mess left by Bennett when he perhaps-but-not-really married those girls and women. Frankly, given the large number of marriages and outrageous actions that I know of in his final months, I rather doubt he would have left - though I greatly respect Quinn's scholarship, so I am sure he knows more.

No arguing, though, that Young and Kimball were among the worst of the lot and dragged a large group of mainly immigrant members to an isolated place, allowing them to do things that were truly radical and immoral - like polygamy and blood atonement.

yes, Emma wanted the anti-polygamy man who was the head of another quorum (high council or something). Joseph left the leadership quite undefined. He actually had a better claim to the presidency than Brigham. The Q12 was actually only calling was to hold up areas who had no leadership.

Correct. The high council was the priesthood body second in authority to the first presidency. The quorum of the 12 came third. Brigham claimed that Joe had told him shortly before his death that the quorum collectively held all keys should anything should happen to him. Not sure if Joe ever said that, but many believed Brigham and followed him into the desert. Not sure if the 12 were sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators at that time either...they were just missionaries.

I've only read the second one (Extensions). I need to read the first one (Origins). Thanks!

I sometimes wonder if Brigham Young was a lunatic. I think he's far more radical than JS was. I think they are both pretty sick.

Haven't read the book you mention or even heard of the though that maybe JS was going to give it all up. Interesting!

Though, with the garments, my understanding was back then they only wore the garments during the temple ceremony. It wasn't all the time like now. Though, that's just what I've heard. I haven't read it any place (though the person I heard it from had read it from someplace...ha).

I thought that the garments were worn at all times. I've read that Joe ditched them in his last days and instructed others to do the same. If I remember correctly, Taylor and Richards were wearing theirs in Carthage. Joe and Hyrum were not.

They ditched them because anti-Mormons could identify the polygamists by who was wearing garments. Ergo, they wore them all the time, not just in the temple.

Smith ditched his garments to avoid being recognized when he decided to return and face his accusers. I think he may have had a spiritual experience right then, something along the lines of an angel whispering to him,"Dude the pus*y isn't worth it."

He certainly died an ignominious death in reality, crying out for Masons to save him and clutching his Jupiter stone.

Karma.


Kathleen Waters

anagrammy Wrote:
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> I think he may have had a spiritual experience right then, something along the lines of an angel whispering to him,"Dude the pus*y isn't worth it."

I think that's it. He was starting to have some regrets about polygamy, not because he was suddenly stricken with conscience, but because it was creating more problems for him than he cared to cope with. Joseph was very self-serving right up until the end.

"It makes me wonder, if Joseph decided to not go back to Carthridge, that he perhaps he would have distanced himself, or even quit, from the church he created."

Perhaps for a time for self-preservation purposes only. But when someone has "partaken" of the benefits of money, sex, and power, it becomes an addiction. He was too far gone to make a lasting change.

I was thinking that maybe the bad parts outweighed the good parts of his power. He could have stepped down and passed the torch to someone else.

His son was going to be the next con-man eeerrrr profit

He was on the run when Emma basically pleaded with him to come back, wasn't he? And he gave this whole "If my life means so little to my friends" line as he decided to turn himself in, right?

Perhaps what more accurately happened (and I'm making this up off poor recollection and such) is Joe tried to persuade Emma to run with him and she was having none of it. After all, he wasn't faithful and much of Joe's property had already been assigned to her name so she could see the $$$ she'd be leaving behind.

Joe, realizing he had lost Emma and the property, decided his best chance of winning back any of it was to survive yet another trial.

Fun thought.

Quinn says that Smith told someone he went to Carthrage against the dictates of the spirit. Honestly, I don't think he would have cared if Emma went with him or not. He might just have wanted his life to be peaceful again, even if he was a poor nobody. I mean, someone in the Council of 50 outted his plans. Everything was crashing down on him.

JS was just making stuff up as he went along. He kept changing things and having new "revelations" and seeing what stuck. That is why so many early LDS left in disgust, especially when the polygamy issue arose. Finally, a few people had enough and they took him out.

BY was not JS's choice. He thought his son would take over, meaning JS did not foresee his death. Many thought his first counselor, Sidney Rigdon, was the obvious heir. The President of the 12 was a strange choice for next in line, like picking the House Speaker over the Vice President.

The controversy is obvious by the fact that JS died in 1844, and BY became President in 1847, 3 years later. https://www.lds.org/churchhistory/presidents/leaders.jsp

Today, succession is immediate, but BY had to fight for 3 years to wrest leadership.

He knew that the church would flounder in Ohio and Missouri, so he decided to take them out west. He made JS's memory an icon, stripping out some of the darker stories of the Great Prophet. Out in remote Utah, BY had 30 years to shape the church in his image with JS as a mere icon. When he died, he had been head of the church for 2/3 of its history, and JS was just a distant memory whose story had been rewritten by BY.

Without someone like BY, the LDS Church would have floundered like the RLDS did. It would be a tiny footnote like the Shakers without the nice furniture, and no one would study the Mormon pioneers in high school history.

axeldc Wrote:
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> "It would be a tiny footnote like the Shakers
> without the nice furniture"

I think Hyrum was the obvious successor - and then his other brother, Samuel... Who was NOT one of the polygamists and mysteriously died of illness about 4 weeks after Carthage, while being nursed by one of the leading Danites - Hosea Stout, a polygamist (some say he was ordered to prevent him from taking over until BY could get back, by apostle Willard Richards). His family believed he was poisoned. There were a lot of people ahead of BY, but somehow he commandeered a pretty big splinter group.

I found Fanny Stenhouse's comments about Young fascinating. She thought him to be unambitious and not particularly intelligent - simply in the right place to make a big difference. He did back a lot of failed ventures....

JS had been in and out of trouble his whole life. I consider his words a "performance" to solicit sympathy from his marks.

He figured he had an "ace" in his back pocket. He had his own private army to break him out of jail, if he could not lie or bribe his way out of court.

There is no way he would have gone back to being a poor farmer.. once a con-man, always a con-man.

Retram (the Mormons got it backward); like a lot of things.

I've never been able to find corroboration for this quote. I've written it off as wishful thinking by Quinn. His scholarship is first rate but he is also a believer and it shows. Subtly, but still.

It doesn't make since to me as to why Quinn is such a believer in the BOM and other church beliefs?

For some reason he just doesn't want to let go? Perhaps, since every religion is a crap shoot, he can claim believing at least one of them for the Saint Peter interview at the gates?

For this, I'm not sure if I want to spend time reading Origins of Power.

Though, i would like to read his church finances book once it is released.

If memory serves, Quinn bases part of his BoM testimony on an experience he had as a missionary. Supposedly, he tracted into a woman that was a Semitic language scholar of some sort, and she commented that the BoM text was very interesting because it bore clear signs of Semitic origins. She never joined the Church, and it strikes me as one of those faith-promoting urban legends. Quinn seems like a credible witness, though, so my pet theory is that some a-hole mission president planted her as a way to promote the faith within the mission. A story like that is guaranteed to be repeated in zone conferences, stake firesides, and local wards for many decades.

Gosh, you would think Quinn at some point would reflect on What is the Missionary experience? Nothing more than a cult behavior 2 year programming course to lock in the seed of loyalty, obedieance, service to the corporation, and tithe forever. Make your kids do it to and continue the cycle. Add in fresh guilt day after day and realize you are broken and you NEED the church or you will have no purpose.

Quinn's been out for a long time. How does a person like that hold on to that manufactured and demonstratively artificial spirtual feeling that can be produced by any form of emotional manipulation?

I am with you...I don't get it.

This thread is really interesting. What would you rfmers recommend me to read for some books pertaining to the unscrubbed early history of tscc. I have read the pdf of the 19th wife.

Grant Palmer's, "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins", is a good higher-level resource. But if you want all the gory details, then Quinn's assorted books are excellent. I also liked George D. Smith's, "Nauvoo Polygamy". It was VERY thorough, but obviously limited in scope.

He was 38 years old and his libido was declining, due to alcohol, depression, and lower testosterone. So yes, he was ready to give it up.