A proven prophecy from Joseph Smith, Jr.

[Uncle Dale]

Well, you have your views and I have mine, I suppose.

[William Schryver]

Well, you have your views and I have mine, I suppose.

[Nevo]

The facts are that not a single southern state sided with South Carolina in her attempt to nullify the federal tariff law!  There was never any credible risk of civil war at the time.  The perceived threat is a product of late 20th century historical hyperbole.

William, your argument seems to embody the "historian's fallacy" of "assuming that a man who has a given historical experience knows it, when he has it, to be all that a historian would know it to be, with the advantage of historical perspective" (see David Hackett Fischer, Historian's Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought [New York: Harper, 1970], 209).

There were people in 1832 who wondered if civil war might not erupt from the Nullification Crisis. You say now, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, that "there was absolutely never any risk of civil war during this crisis! It was little more than a polical poker game." No one knew that at the time though!

When Jackson ordered federal troops to Castle Pickney and Sullivan's Island in Charleston harbor, made preparations to assist Unionist militia in the northern counties of South Carolina, and asked the Secretary of War to report on how quickly arms and troops (including three artillery divisions) might be gathered to "crush the monster in its cradle," he didn't know how it would end. Particularly when twenty-five thousand volunteers had already answered the call to fight for South Carolina.

True, not a single state legislature ultimately sided with South Carolina, but there was nevertheless significant support for the nullifiers. According to Wilentz, "in Georgia, a powerful minority supported nullification, and although the legislators turned down a proclamation favoring it, they did call for a convention of southern states to discuss the issue. In Virginia, the Tidewater slaveholder establishment were particularly supportive of nullification . . . . The North Carolina legislature condemned South Carolina's 'revolutionary' and 'subversive' actions, but also denounced the protective tariff as unconstitutional" (Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, 383-84).

In other words, I disagree with your assessment that "there was absolutely never any risk" of civil war. On the other hand, I agree that there is more to D&C 87 than many critics would like to admit.

[RichardMdBorn]

For the skeptics, here's something that you can try.

Tell us where there will be a war in 2028, which will involve your homeland.

Tell us exactly where the war will start, within a 100-mile radius of a given point.

Tell us which issue will be the key reason that the war starts.

Care to try?  Joseph did it.

He prophesied the US Civil War, that it would be over the issue of slavery, AND THAT IT WOULD START IN SOUTH CAROLINA.  Military historians will tell you that the war should never have started there, that it was "almost accidental," and "nobody could have guessed," because SC just wasn't important enough (even in 1860) to bring the entire South to the battlefield.  In 1838, South Carolina was a political backwater, a place somewhere between Georgia and Virginia that made the trip longer between Alexandria and Atlanta.  It was little more in 1860. 

Yet the war started there, right where Joseph said it would start OVER TWO DECADES EARLIER.

. . .now begin the Yabbuts, if any of the skeptics even dare to answer . . .

Slavery was of great concern to many of the founding fathers.

Thomas Jefferson expressed his opinion on the Missouri Compromise in a letter to John Holms dated April 22, 1820. Jefferson writes that the Missouri question, "like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union."

In a letter to William Short from April 13, 1820, Jefferson wrote that the "Missouri question aroused and filled me with alarm...I have been among the most sanguine in believing that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much."

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Missouri.html

John Adams at the same time,

[nezumi]

hmmm ...

William Schryver,Aug 11 2006, 08:52 PM

NO ONE envisioned civil war in 1832 ...

and ...

(William Schryver @ Aug 11 2006, 09:13 PM)

But the threat of secession was not understood as a prelude to civil war!

Yet

(Nevo @ Aug 11 2006, 11:49 PM) ... signalling Jackson's identification of nullification with "CIVIL WAR AND DISUNION"

from the Washington Globe, March 2, 1831; November 29, 1832; emphasis in original.

And several other 1830s contemporary citations mentioned in this thread that specifically link disunion with "civil war," after which it is still claimed that NO ONE envisioned civil war in 1832.

I'll have to think about this one a bit .... how can the claim be made that NO ONE envisioned civil war while multiple contemporary newspapers and other sources are talking about civil war and even printing the term in all CAPS? How can the claim be made that secession in the 1830s was not envisioned as leading to civil war, yet President Jackson had already given the order to use force and fight if necessary? These facts don't seem to support the claim that no one was thinking this might lead to civil war, but seems to point the opposite

.... but I might be a bit dim tonight, I'll think about it some more and maybe the common sense conclusion, that pretty much any reputable historian holds, that imminent civil war seemed probable in 1832 can be overcome and I can see how it was impossible to predict and so forth and such, and hence how such claims must be prophetic.

(I guess all those 1830s newspaper editors were at least partially inspired as well in order to print their headlines and articles too, huh?)

[TheObserver]

For the skeptics, here's something that you can try.

Tell us where there will be a war in 2028, which will involve your homeland.

Tell us exactly where the war will start, within a 100-mile radius of a given point.

Tell us which issue will be the key reason that the war starts.

Care to try?  Joseph did it.

In that year (or around that year) there will be a war in Israel. A key reason for the war will be long-existing hatreds between the Jews and the Muslims.

EDIT: Tell me why we have to name the location within a 100-mile radius of a given point. Does the entire area of South Carolina lie within a 100-mile radius of some point?

Also, I hope that you'll allow us to merely say that the war will "shortly come to pass" rather than requiring us to guarantee that the war will happen exactly in 2028. Did Joseph Smith actually give a year in his prophecy?

I'm curious. Can someone please tell me the earliest year in which this prophecy was published, and the exact wording of the prophecy at that time? IS it the same wording as we now see in the D & C?

[Uncle Dale]

I'm curious. Can someone please tell me the earliest year in which this prophecy was published, and the exact wording of the prophecy at that time? IS it the same wording as we now see in the D & C?

I was mistaken, when I said earlier that the LDS had never published this text in

their D&C --- It was only the RLDS who first considered that notion, and then rejected

the idea.

From what I recall, the RLDS rejected publishing this text, because no original JS

document for it could be found. The wording and the purported timing do coincide

closely with the Jan. 4, 1833 Smith letter I posted earlier in this thread, however. I see

no reason to doubt that JS did issue such a text, at the end of 1832, as a "revelation."

Whether the current LDS D&C sec. 87 is the same as Smith's original. I do not know.

Probably the set of Joseph Smith DVDs made a couple of years ago includes the old

Kirtland Revelation Book -- see pp. 32-33 of the KRB images for the document.

I do not know of any publication before the 1851 LDS PGP.

Uncle Dale

[Programmer]

UhOh!:-)

Don't pull the Civil war prophecy on me..

i'm MELting, Melting, melting....:-)

Why not one of the first? Did they sell the BOM copyright?

Did the BOM sell out at $5.00 a copy? odd they had revelations to keep reducing the price:-), now you give it away!

Guess we still need to wait for the $5.00 BOM to return? Will that be in 2028?

(I really should just go to bed early:-)

Your mockery is not appreciated on this thread. Can it buddy.

[Dale]

UhOh!:-)

Don't pull the Civil war prophecy on me..

i'm MELting, Melting, melting....:-)

Why not one of the first? Did they sell the BOM copyright?

Did the BOM sell out at $5.00 a copy? odd they had revelations to keep reducing the price:-), now you give it away!

Guess we still need to wait for the $5.00 BOM to return? Will that be in 2028?

(I really should just go to bed early:-)

Anti-Mormons are aware of the Civil War Prophecy, but instead of ignoring it present the reasons why they feel it is not a false prophecy. I am not convinced they had an inescapeable case against the prophecy. But critics of Joseph Smith are not unaware of such stuff. They are highly intelligent people in some cases.

As to the Book of Mormon copy-right selling thing. I understand it was meant for the Canada area only. That ownership would be retained for the U.S. area. Now the Lord is higher in authority than Deut. 18:21,22 and he decided it did not prove Joseph Smith a false prophet. And he did not claim the blaim for the instruction as he pointed out to Joseph Smith that the Devil, man not just himself might be the source of prophecies also.

The Lord if he allowed a prophet to decieve himself then he can certainly decide to re-affirm his servant as being his servant. But if it wasn't God that spoke to Joseph Smith at any time then he gave a false prophecy, and would be a false prophet. Is God, or Deut. 18:21,22 higher in authority on the Book of Mormon copy-right matter?

[thesometimesaint]

Our own Kerry Shirts has a good article on this.

http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/awaron.htm

[William Schryver]

The facts are that not a single southern state sided with South Carolina in her attempt to nullify the federal tariff law!  There was never any credible risk of civil war at the time.  The perceived threat is a product of late 20th century historical hyperbole.

William, your argument seems to embody the "historian's fallacy" of "assuming that a man who has a given historical experience knows it, when he has it, to be all that a historian would know it to be, with the advantage of historical perspective" (see David Hackett Fischer, Historian's Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought [New York: Harper, 1970], 209).

There were people in 1832 who wondered if civil war might not erupt from the Nullification Crisis. You say now, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, that "there was absolutely never any risk of civil war during this crisis! It was little more than a polical poker game." No one knew that at the time though!

When Jackson ordered federal troops to Castle Pickney and Sullivan's Island in Charleston harbor, made preparations to assist Unionist militia in the northern counties of South Carolina, and asked the Secretary of War to report on how quickly arms and troops (including three artillery divisions) might be gathered to "crush the monster in its cradle," he didn't know how it would end. Particularly when twenty-five thousand volunteers had already answered the call to fight for South Carolina.

True, not a single state legislature ultimately sided with South Carolina, but there was nevertheless significant support for the nullifiers. According to Wilentz, "in Georgia, a powerful minority supported nullification, and although the legislators turned down a proclamation favoring it, they did call for a convention of southern states to discuss the issue. In Virginia, the Tidewater slaveholder establishment were particularly supportive of nullification . . . . The North Carolina legislature condemned South Carolina's 'revolutionary' and 'subversive' actions, but also denounced the protective tariff as unconstitutional" (Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, 383-84).

In other words, I disagree with your assessment that "there was absolutely never any risk" of civil war. On the other hand, I agree that there is more to D&C 87 than many critics would like to admit.

I am inclined to agree with your interpretation as you articulate it, but my point is that "civil war" as perhaps threatened in 1832 bore no resemblance to the Joseph Smith prediction -- as I think you agree.

The Nullification Crisis never threatened to be something that might have informed Joseph Smith's prediction. His prophecy was specific, and accurately defined the scenario that began to play out after the Kansas/Nebraska act of 1854, but which could not have been envisioned until that time, at the earliest. Certainly Lincoln began to see the writing on the wall, and the text of the Lincoln/Douglas debates (which I heartily recommend to all!) bear that out.

As you note, there is much more to D&C 87 than is commonly admitted by the critics.

[Nevo]

And here's something from our own Dan Vogel:

These events [pertaining to the Nullification Crisis] were being followed very closely by the newspapers, including the Painesville Telegraph, which declared in mid-December that "civil war" was at hand and "unless some signal interposition shall arrest the course of events . . . our national existence is at an end." On 25 December 1832 . . . Joseph Smith penned his famous "Prophecy on War."

. . .

By March 1833 the immediate threat of civil war had subsided, and Smith chose not to publish his Prophecy on War with his other revelations. When the Compromise of 1850 rekindled the conflict and national disaster threatened, the prophecy was included in the The Pearl of Great Price, a pamphlet published in 1851 in England.

-- Dan Vogel, Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988), 189-90; Painesville Telegraph, 21 December 1832.

[Nevo]

I am inclined to agree with your interpretation as you articulate it, but my point is that "civil war" as perhaps threatened in 1832 bore no resemblance to the Joseph Smith prediction -- as I think you agree.

The Nullification Crisis never threatened to be something that might have informed Joseph Smith's prediction.  His prophecy was specific, and accurately defined the scenario that began to play out after the Kansas/Nebraska act of 1854, but which could not have been envisioned until that time, at the earliest.  Certainly Lincoln began to see the writing on the wall, and the text of the Lincoln/Douglas debates (which I heartily recommend to all!) bear that out.

As you note, there is much more to D&C 87 than is commonly admitted by the critics.

I mostly agree with you here. But I wouldn't say that the events of 1832 bore no resemblance to Joseph Smith's prediction. I think the "rebellion of South Carolina" mentioned in D&C 87:1 may well refer to the situation that obtained in December 1832, but the rest of the prophecy admittedly isn't a very good fit for the Nullification Crisis.

[Catholic Girl]

It only takes ONE prophecy that DOES NOT "come to pass" to expose a false prophet.

Joseph Smith had many, many failed prophecies. Anyone know what the official "anti" count is?

So the evidence of his ONE questionable prophecy that did come to pass is very unimpressive and most definetly not proof of him being a prophet to anyone outside Mormonism. Quite the opposite, actually.

Now if the numbers were reversed and all his other prophecies "came to pass" and this was the one he was wrong on.....you may have a better arguement.

No, wait---

Remember.........It only takes ONE failed prophecy.

[Dale]

Other than one item regarding the Book of Mormon copy-right I do not see other examples of false prophecies as the inescapeable false prophecies seen by critics. I just thing LDS apologists have shown critics have overstated the items. A book by someone associated with FAIR has been doing a book replying to the critics examples for some time. Replies have been available on the internet and so LDS apologetics books for some time.

The critic's top list I think is as sixty false prophecies. But the best examples I keep on seeing is the examples I see as weak.

If Jesus previously gave revelations to Joseph Smith then the Book of Mormon copy-right thing does not any longer prove Joseph Smith a false prophet. Jesus to me is higher in authority than any Old Testament test. Besides the law of Moses has been fulfilled, so modern prophets arn't to be judged by it as the final authority. God is the final authority not any Old Testament test.

[Uncle Dale]

By March 1833 the immediate threat of civil war had subsided, and Smith chose not to publish his Prophecy on War with his other revelations. When the Compromise of 1850 rekindled the conflict and national disaster threatened, the prophecy was included in the The Pearl of Great Price, a pamphlet published in 1851 in England.

-- Dan Vogel, Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988), 189-90; Painesville Telegraph, 21 December 1832

If the 1832 text was an important divine message, I can only wonder why God did

not command that it be included in His 1833 "Book of Commandments" or in His

1835 "Doctrine and Covenants."

In his Jan. 4th, 1833 letter to the Rochester newspaper, does not JS say that he is

warning people to convert to Mormonism -- and to flee to Indpendence, MO, to

safeguard themselves and their families from this impending apocalyptic war?

Could it be that the resolution of the South Carolina problems, coupled with the

Missourians' summer 1833 threats to expel the Mormons from Jackson County, were

the causes that this text was held back -- and not published until 1851 (after the

Brighamites had come to think of Great Salt Lake City as their refuge, rather than

Independence, Missouri)?

Since Dan Vogel has here been cited, could he offer a clarification to this thread?

UD

[maklelan]

It only takes ONE prophecy that DOES NOT "come to pass" to expose a false prophet.

Isaiah had a prophecy that did not come true (Isaiah 23:15-18), as did Ezekiel (Zeke 26:3-12). Maybe your absolutist attitude needs a couple of checks and balances.

Joseph Smith had many, many failed prophecies.  Anyone know what the official "anti" count is?

Yes, I'd like to know which ones they are.

So the evidence of his ONE questionable prophecy that did come to pass is very unimpressive and most definetly not proof of him being a prophet to anyone outside Mormonism.  Quite the opposite, actually.

How do you figure?

Now if the numbers were reversed and all his other prophecies "came to pass" and this was the one he was wrong on.....you may have a better arguement.

How on earth do you figure? You stated above that it only takes one. You've already condemned Ezekiel and Isaiah, why would you concede that only one wouldn't do the same to Joseph?

No, wait---

Remember.........It only takes ONE failed prophecy.

Ah, I see. So you will condemn Isaiah and Ezekiel along with Joseph Smith.

[Dale]

I think the Book of Mormon copy-write could have been sold in Canada if they told the buyer he could sell it as interesting inspirational fiction. If the publisher had been able to distance himself from the religious claim's of the book, or even state his unbelief in the introduction to the book I think he could have sold some books. I doubt they had women publishers back then. If they wanted to much money potential buyers could have been scared off. If they were preachy that would have scared off buyers.

It might be possible though that the fact that they sold the book in Canada might help the Mormons might have scared off a buyer.

Telling Joseph Smith about revelations being of God, man, or the Devil could have been given to test Joseph Smith's faith in the unfullfilled prophecy.

Could eventually somebody have bought the copy-write? Or was such a buy impossible? I doubt anything even an instruction to sell a copywrite is without a condition. No success without conditions for that success.

[Uncle Dale]

Telling Joseph Smith about revelations being of God, man, or the Devil could have been given to test Joseph Smith's faith in the unfullfilled prophecy.

OK -- I'll buy that.

The early Mormons "hid up" the 1832 text, realizing that the so-called "prophecy" had

not been fulfilled in 1832-33. That, as a matter of fact, the "righteous" could NOT flee

to the Missouri Zion at that time, and that apocalyptic war had NOT overtaken them.

Thus, the RLDS leaders were wise, not to force the text upon General Conference and

require the Reorganized Saints to canonize a document which was, at best, "unfulfilled"

and, at worst, perhaps a revelation from the Devil.

See also the "revelation" supposedly "given" JS, immediately after the expulsion of

the Mormons from their Jackson County "Zion," in which God seemingly is not at all

aware of that important fact -- and is giving instruction to the Jackson County Mormons,

as though they were still living in the "land of promise."

The RLDS leaders were also wise, not to force JS's 1836 Salem, MA "treasure-seeking"

text upon the General Conference for canonization --- and they were equally wise,

to move several of JS's Nauvoo texts out of the RLDS D&C, several years back.

Perhaps in coming years, Community of Christ will review its D&C, and exclude a few

more of the JS texts --- that might be interesting.

UD

[Tchild2]

Jgoldenrockwell wrote:

For the skeptics, here's something that you can try.

Tell us where there will be a war in 2028, which will involve your homeland.

Tell us exactly where the war will start, within a 100-mile radius of a given point.

Tell us which issue will be the key reason that the war starts.

Care to try? Joseph did it.

I am curious as to why this singular "fulfilled" prophecy (its fulfillment was partial and debatable at best) is so important? The world has seen far larger conflagerations involving the majority of this planet's countries in not one, but two massive world wars. What what so important about prophecying about the impending civil war in the United States? Would the saints have been impacted to the degree of having their fledgling religion stunted? None of the states where the saints were congregated were in involved in the fighting. So what was so important about knowing about the civil war, but not knowing anything more to come (beyond the most ambigious generalities) for the next 170+ years?

Secondly, if God is no respector of persons, why is he acting so ethnocentric and providing localized prophecy affecting such a small percentage of the earth's inhabitants (roughly 10% of Americans were involved in the fighting)? Russia in WWII lost about 25 million of its citizens while a whole race was nearly exterminated by the German war machine. How many LDS lived during the time of the prophecy? 10,000? More? What about some prophecy now for the 12 million members, now that the church population has grown exponentially?

I am curious Jgolden, what exactly does this prophecy do to help the saints, further the gospel or to make this planet a better place?

[caudicus]

I admit that I haven't read much of this thread, so hopefully this hasn't been presented. Fawn Brodie (I know, I know...shhh) had a pretty reasonable explanation behind this prophecy, and she was pretty good at providing references. I will see if I cannot dig it up, but I am in the middle of nowhere right now, so it will take a while.

If I recall the story correctly, Joseph Smith Jr. went to D.C.? and heard talk and speculation and based his "prophecy" on what he learned during the visit.

[Uncle Dale]

I admit that I haven't read much of this thread, so hopefully this hasn't been presented. Fawn Brodie (I know, I know...shhh) had a pretty reasonable explanation behind this prophecy, and she was pretty good at providing references. I will see if I cannot dig it up, but I am in the middle of nowhere right now, so it will take a while.

If I recall the story correctly, Joseph Smith Jr. went to D.C.? and heard talk and speculation and based his "prophecy" on what he learned during the visit.

JS didn't visit Washington until the end of 1839 -- His information on contemporary

events, like Nat Turner's Rebellion, the South Carolina Nullification Crisis, etc.,

probably came mostly from Ohio newspapers and word of mouth.

Here is a typical LDS "faith-promoting" portrayal of the situation:

The Heavens Resound:

A History of the Latter-day Saints in Ohio 1830-1838.

by Milton V. Backman, Jr.

SLC: Deseret Book, 1983

The Civil War Prophecy (pp. 226-228)

The devastating forces that would plague mankind prior to the Millennium were

emphasized in a prophecy recorded by the Prophet on December 25, 1832: "The

inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake,

and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the

inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening

hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all

nations."

Describing events that were occurring in the world at the time he received this

prophecy, the Prophet wrote that a "rebellion" had erupted in South Carolina.

The people of South Carolina at that time were experiencing a deteriorating

economy; while cotton planters were faced with declining prices and exhausted soil,

settlers in Charleston were finding it difficult to compete with more powerful

trading centers in New York and other port cities. Meanwhile, many in South Carolina

were concerned about increased agitation in the North against slavery. They also

feared the growing political power of the North, which in time would enable that

section of the country to impose its will over the South. Discontent in South

Carolina eventually focused on protective tariffs that apparently favored the

North at the expense of the South. Both the Tariff of 1828 and the Tariff of 1832

included provisions that, according to many southerners, channeled the wealth of

the South into the hands of their political opponents. In ovember 1832, leaders

of South Carolina, meeting in convention, declared the hated Tariff of 1832 null

and void in their state beginning February 1, 1833.

With threats of nullification and possibly secession, President Andrew Jackson

maneuvered forces in the nation's capital to try to prevent the citizens of South

Carolina from carrying out their objectives. In December, after calling on

Americans to demonstrate their loyalty to the Union, he asked Congress to pass

an act permitting him to enforce the revenue laws in South Carolina by any means

necessary. Congress responded by granting the President authority to use the national

army and navy to crush the rebellion in South Carolina.

While Joseph Smith's prophecy on war was recorded during a period of crisis in

American history, at a time when there was talk of war, there was no immediate

threat of major civil war in 1832. No other state was willing to support South

Carolina at that time. It is possible that if war had erupted at that time, the

confrontation would have been between South Carolina and the combined forces of

all other states. After Joseph Smith received the revelation on war, the crisis

in South Carolina was temporarily resolved when Congress met in January 1832 and

discussed lowering the tariff, and settlers in South Carolina suspended their

nullification ordinance. In the spring of 1832 Congress enacted a compromise

tariff, providing for a genuine downward revision of the tariff, after which

South Carolinians rescinded a nullification ordinance that was never enacted.

When the prophecy on war is placed in its historical setting and statements in

it are coupled with Joseph Smith's interpretation of what he learned from the

Lord, it emerges as one of the most remarkable predictions recorded by the

Prophet. He wrote that on December 25, 1832, while "praying earnestly on the

subject," he learned that "the commencement of the difficulties which will cause

much bloodshed previous to the coming of the Son of Man will be in South Carolina."

In addition to learning through revelation that there would be a rebellion in

South Carolina, the Prophet learned that the northern states would be divided

against the southern states (in 1832-33 no other state supported South Carolina

in the nullification controversy); that the civil war would lead to the death

and misery of many souls; that the South would call on other nations for help,

even the nation of Great Britain (which South Carolinians were not considering

in the early thirties); that the slaves would be marshaled and disciplined or

war; and that following this irrepressible conflict, war would be poured out

upon all nations.  All these prophecies were later fulfilled to some extent.

Though nearly all of the predictions recorded in the prophecy on war have been

realized, it also contains instructions to those who will be living during the

turbulent days preceding the Second Coming of Christ. In the midst of the sorrow,

suffering, death, and destruction that will occur in the last days, followers of

the Lord are admonished, "Stand ye in holy places, and be not moved."

I prefer the short comment provided by James B. Allen & Glen M. Leonard, whom

I consider better historians than Backman:

"Just a year earlier the United States had come close to civil war when South

Carolina had claimed the right to nullify an act of congress within its borders.

President Jackson went so far as to assemble troops, declare South Carolina in

rebellion, and threaten to march on the state..."

The Story of the Latter-day Saints, SLC: Deseret Books, 1976, p. 89

We might say that this was the scene where Joseph Smith "came into the movie."

Jackson had assembled troops -- South Carolina had assembled its militias --

Jackson was frantically politicking with Senators from neighboring southern states,

in order to isolate South Carolina -- everybody knew that high tarriffs would hurt

the cotton industry, and thus inflame the growing slavery debate -- Jackson was

very lucky to have gotten through the affair without major violence.

Of course, at the end of 1832, Joseph Smith, Jr. still did not know how the crisis

would turn out: bloodshed seemed inevitable, from the sensationalized news reports.

At that very time, JS had "something to sell" -- that is, a proclaimed safety from the

"wrath that was to come" in his newly-colonized (but yet unbuilt) "Mount Zion" in

Missouri. That "city of refuge" had totally disappeared before the end of 1833 --

and Smith had nothing tangible there to "sell." Besides which, Jackson had averted

violence in South Carolina.

No wonder his "revelation" was laid quietly aside and not published in the Mormons'

newspapers of that era.

Uncle Dale

[spinner]

For the skeptics, here's something that you can try.

Tell us where there will be a war in 2028, which will involve your homeland.

Tell us exactly where the war will start, within a 100-mile radius of a given point.

Tell us which issue will be the key reason that the war starts.

Care to try?

[William Schryver]

I'm in Moab for the weekend, but amazingly they have wireless available nearby, so I can make a connection.

Anyway, in light of some of the posts on this thread, I want to clarify and reiterate my stance.

Despite the hyperbole of some contemporary newspaper editors, there was no real threat of "civil war" in 1832 as a result of the Nullification Crisis. I will consent that there was a threat of a localized civil uprising in South Carolina. However, as I have noted previously, South Carolina was alone in her attempt to nullify the federal tariff.

Now, that said, I want to reiterate that even if we were to define "civil war" in terms that would include the threat of a localized rebellion in South Carolina over their opposition to the tariff, it cannot be construed to account for the specifics in the December 25, 1832 revelation given to Joseph Smith, mainly that:

... the rebellion ... will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls ...

... war will be poured out upon all nations ...

... the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States ...

... the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain ...

... slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war ...

... the remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation ...

I challenge those who are attempting to associate the Nullification Crisis with this prophecy to draw the causal links between that 1832 event and the specific predictions listed above. In 1832, the slavery question was as dormant an issue as it had been since the framing of the constitution, and would remain so until 1850, and no one anywhere envisioned a civil war that would "terminate in the death and misery of many souls." 620,000 to be exact.

[Cold Steel]

The Southern States had many reasons for cessetion. But if you read the cessetion proclamtions THEY ALL mention the slave issue.

Yes, and when President Lincoln offered a proposed 13th Amendment which would guarantee the right of the Southern states to maintain slavery in perpetuity, the Southern states raised the issue of tariffs. They already were paying 80 percent of the federal budget because the industrialist North had the votes to impose it on the South. Lincoln wanted to boost the tariff to an "extortionist" 47 percent (in the words of Lincoln biographer Thomas DiLorenzo), and on this issue he would not budge. The Confederacy's biggest mistake was that it did not admit non-slave states or probably several states in the North might have joined.

Lincoln cared not a whit about slavery as a political issue, which he stated publicly numerous times. He did condemn it privately, but he said he wouldn't go out on a limb if it meant the dissolution of the United States, and he added that the president didn't have the right to address the issue, anyway.

The real question was whether a state had the right to leave the Union. The founding fathers, including Jefferson (who's descendents fought for the South), said yes. Lincoln said no and used force to back it up. To this day it's never been determined by the Supreme Court and that's the primary reason Davis and Lee were never prosecuted for treason. Lincoln's lawyers warned that they would lose in court what they had gained on the battlefield and Lincoln knew enough to let the issue alone. It was only right that he be one of the final casualties of the bloody war that he, alone, brought on this country -- a war which was entirely preventable. He forced the Southern states into rebellion, then brutally murdered its people. It had so many chances of being preventable, in fact, that I consider Smith's prophecy to be extranordarily remarkable.