Kingdom of Nauvoo by Benjamin E. Park

[Fair Dinkum]

I'm currently about 1/4th of the way through this recently published book that chronicles the history of the church during the Nauvoo period, so forgive me if I don't have all of my facts straight.  While I have read many books that focus on this period of church history, including the official History of the Church, this book brings a new lens to this period due to new access to the minutes of the Council of Fifty. I may be mistaken, but I believe that this is the first widely available book to be published after being given full access to these minutes.

The author, Benjamin E. Park, gives special thanks to the church for its recent transparency of its history.  The minutes to the Council of Fifty were only made available for researchers in 2016.  Still anyone wanting access must be given special permission to gain full access.

I feel well enough informed in Church history, that very little surprises me any more and yet I found myself quite surprised with one of the claims this author alleges.  According to the minutes of the Council of Fifty, this council had serious problems with the U.S. Constitution and our current system of republican representative government and felt that the U.S. system of government had failed the saints. In fact, the council had gone so far as to draft a new constitution, under Joseph Smith's authorization, that they intended to replace our current U.S. Constitution with.  It was the plan of this council to supplant our current government with a theocracy with Joseph Smith as its head. And no this was no to be timed with the coming of Christ but was intended to take place before.

While I am quite aware of our history in both Missouri and Illinois and the suffering that the members of the church faced there. I am also aware of the many efforts leaders of the church undertook to seek redresses from the federal government for the mistreatment the church and its members received at the hands of Missourians and that these efforts failed.  I had no idea that there was a concerted effort to replace the government of the United States including the replacement of our U.S. Constitution with a completely new Constitution and government.

I do find it quite ironic that these historical events fly counter to our current patriotism of America and our collective love and support of the U.S. Constitution as a Inspired document.

Is this supplanting of the constitution by the church a well known historical fact and I'm just late to the party or is anyone else surprised by the claims of this author?

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/topic/council-of-fifty

Edited May 11, 2020 by Fair Dinkum

[Tacenda]

10 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I'm currently about 1/4th of the way through this recently published book that chronicles the history of the church during the Nauvoo period, so forgive me if I don't have all of my facts straight.  While I have read many books that focus on this period of church history, including the official History of the Church, this book brings a new lens to this period due to new access to the minutes of the Council of Fifty. I may be mistaken, but I believe that this is the first widely available book to be published after being given full access to these minutes.

The author, Benjamin E. Park, gives special thanks to the church for its recent transparency of its history.  The minutes to the Council of Fifty were only made available for researchers in 2016.  Still anyone wanting access must be given special permission to gain full access.

I feel well enough informed in Church history, that very little surprises me any more and yet I found myself quite surprised with one of the claims this author alleges.  According to the minutes of the Council of Fifty, this council had serious problems with the U.S. Constitution and our current system of republican representative government and felt that the U.S. system of government had failed the saints. In fact, the council had gone so far as to draft a new constitution, under Joseph Smith's authorization, that they intended to replace our current U.S. Constitution with.  It was the plan of this council to supplant our current government with a theocracy with Joseph Smith as its head. And no this was no to be timed with the coming of Christ but was intended to take place before.

While I am quite aware of our history in both Missouri and Illinois and the suffering that the members of the church faced there. I am also aware of the many efforts leaders of the church undertook to seek redresses from the federal government for the mistreatment the church and its members received at the hands of Missourians and that these efforts failed.  I had no idea that there was a concerted effort to replace the government of the United States including the replacement of our U.S. Constitution with a completely new Constitution and government.

I do find it quite ironic that these historical events fly counter to our current patriotism of America and our collective love and support of the U.S. Constitution as a Inspired document.

Is this supplanting of the constitution by the church a well known historical fact and I'm just late to the party or is anyone else surprised by the claims of this author?

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/topic/council-of-fifty

For a long time the Council of the Fifty information was well hidden. The church now has to be open with information that can now be readily found on the internet. 

[Fair Dinkum]

Just now, Tacenda said:

For a long time the Council of the Fifty information was well hidden. The church now has to be open with information that can now be readily found on the internet. 

Again I may be incorrect but I believe that the minutes of the Council of Fifty were hidden and unavailable through any other source, even unavailable on the internet, until their release in 2016.

[Tacenda]

11 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Again I may be incorrect but I believe that the minutes of the Council of Fifty were hidden and unavailable through any other source, even unavailable on the internet, until their release in 2016.

Maybe the church needed to be out ahead of it coming out? I guess this could be an exception on what is leaked out then. 

[Fair Dinkum]

2 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Maybe the church needed to be out ahead of it coming out? I guess this could be an exception on what is leaked out then. 

I like to think that the church has decided that being transparent in an internet age is to their advantage rather than disadvantage.  Keeping historical things hidden or secret has come back to bite them and it seems that they have learned from this.  I say good for them.  Transparency is a good thing.

[Bob Crockett]

59 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I do find it quite ironic that these historical events fly counter to our current patriotism of America and our collective love and support of the U.S. Constitution as a Inspired document.

Is this supplanting of the constitution by the church a well known historical fact and I'm just late to the party or is anyone else surprised by the claims of this author?

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/topic/council-of-fifty

There is absolutely no secret to this fact among Saints who read their history.  Joseph Smith had the view that the President of the United States should have intervened to protect the Saints in Missouri, and that the failure to do so was a failure of the constitution and the federal government.  To the extent Joseph Smith spoke about the constitution in the D&C, it was meant to give some backbone to the President to act. 

When he didn't act, Brigham Young took the saints west to escape the United States, and reached  agreement with Mexico to settle in Mexico without interference.  It was shortly thereafter that the Saints found themselves back in the U.S. with the Treaty of Guadalupe on February 2, 1848.  But Brigham Young persisted for a decade or more in his venomous attack on the U.S.  The Democratic party defended the Saints during the congressional attacks upon the Saints, and so the Saints naturally aligned themselves with the Democrats (largely, pro-slavers).  The Democrats asserted states rights over the federal assertion of authority by the Republicans, leading the Saints to try and get help from the Democrats.  

The Church members began a shift to the right with the ascension of Reed Smoot from 1902 to World War II.    And of course, J. Reuben Clark, a notorious advocate of the strength of federal power.  He was known for drafting a memorandum to the President justifying the seizure in Nicaragua oil assets, and the replacement of the government with, I seem to recall, the Samozas.  Pres. Clark was widely admired and would give sermons in the Tabernacle about politics.  

It isn't ironic.  

Edited May 11, 2020 by Bob Crockett

[smac97]

3 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

According to the minutes of the Council of Fifty, this council had serious problems with the U.S. Constitution and our current system of republican representative government and felt that the U.S. system of government had failed the saints.

Yes.  Given the context of what the early Saints were facing, is this surprising to you?

And it may be fair to say that the "serious problems" arose primarily not with "the U.S. Constitution and our current system of republic representative government" per se, but instead arose with the egregious mobocratic torments endured by the 19th-century Saints, who were ostensibly entitled to some sort of protections under the Constitution (though the incorporation of the Constitution to the state - which either neglected the Saints or acted in concert with the mobs against the Saints - came much later).

Also, what are your thoughts about the state of constitutional law during the Nauvoo Period (1839-1847)?

Quote

In fact, the council had gone so far as to draft a new constitution, under Joseph Smith's authorization, that they intended to replace our current U.S. Constitution with.  It was the plan of this council to supplant our current government with a theocracy with Joseph Smith as its head. And no this was no to be timed with the coming of Christ but was intended to take place before.

The Deseret News reported on this in February 2018, and Nate Oman wrote about it in 2016.  As you seem to be trying to present this information for its "shock value," let's review a bit of what Prof. Oman had to say:

Quote

On March 11, 1844, the Council appointed a committee of John Taylor, Willard Richards, W.W. Phelps, and Parley P. Pratt “to draft a constitution which should be perfect, and embrace those principles of which the constitution of the United States lacked.”  Slightly more than a month later, on April 18th, the committee reported a draft constitution to the entire Council. The authors, however, expressed their dissatisfaction with what they have produced, and it was returned to committee.  A week later, Joseph Smith announced to the Council a revelation abandoning the effort to draft a written constitution for the Kingdom of God, and the Council devoted the rest of its efforts to the more immediate problems facing the Saints, ultimately culminating in the abandonment of Nauvoo after Joseph Smith’s murder and the relocation en mass of the Mormons to the Great Basin.

This bare statement of events casts the Mormons as radicals, operating dramatically apart from the American political tradition.
...
The problem is that the narrative of smooth national expansion through a system of settlement, territorial government, and finally statehood is false. In the nineteenth century, North America was littered with abortive republics seeking varying levels of independence from the federal government and the other competing powers on the continent. Very early in the history of the United States settlers formed break away polities on the borders of existing states. 

Oman provides a litany of examples of comparable efforts (Vermont's effort to declare itself an independent republic in 1791, the State of Franklin, Aaron Burr's 1804 plan "to detach the western territories of the United States to form a new nation with himself at its head," the 1810 "Republic of West Florida," etc.).  Oman then continues:

Quote

In this welter of imagined states, drafting a written constitution, far from being a radical gesture, was a well-established political ritual.  Most of these would-be constitution writers self-consciously modeled their work on the Constitution of the United States or state constitutions. 
...
It is only against this far messier background of American political history that we can see what was unique in the abortive constitution making of the Council of Fifty in March and April of 1844. 

Does this context alter your calculus of these events?

Quote

While I am quite aware of our history in both Missouri and Illinois and the suffering that the members of the church faced there. I am also aware of the many efforts leaders of the church undertook to seek redresses from the federal government for the mistreatment the church and its members received at the hands of Missourians and that these efforts failed.  I had no idea that there was a concerted effort to replace the government of the United States including the replacement of our U.S. Constitution with a completely new Constitution and government.

The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal About Mormon History was published jointly by BYU and Deseret Book in 2017.

Quote

I do find it quite ironic that these historical events fly counter to our current patriotism of America and our collective love and support of the U.S. Constitution as a Inspired document.

Could you explain the irony? 

I think there is are significant differences between the state of constitutional law as it existed and applied to the Nauvoo-era Saints versus the state of constitutional law today (the mostly-in-the-20th-century process of incorporating the Bill of Rights to the states comes immediately to mind).

I don't think we have an appreciation for the effects of the mobs on the early Saints, and the effects of governmental neglect/indifference (or worse, governmental collaboration with the mobs).  In contrast, the Latter-day Saints in 2020 enjoy robust protection of their individual and collective constitutional rights, such that I am very happy to be an American, and to celebrate the Constitution as an inspired document.  

Quote

Is this supplanting of the constitution by the church a well known historical fact and I'm just late to the party or is anyone else surprised by the claims of this author?

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/topic/council-of-fifty

You're a few years late to the party, but not too bad.

More to the point, it's not that much of a party.  There's not a lot of "there" there.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited May 11, 2020 by smac97

[smac97]

27 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I like to think that the church has decided that being transparent in an internet age is to their advantage rather than disadvantage.  Keeping historical things hidden or secret has come back to bite them and it seems that they have learned from this.  I say good for them.  Transparency is a good thing.

I think the Church has become a lot more transparent in the last several years.  I doubt it will ever be as "transparent" as is demanded by its critics and dissidents (who never seem to actually get around to defining what they want the Church to do, except to endlessly demand that it do "more").

I wonder how much of this is attributable to Richard Turley.  I just read a fascinating article about him in the Tribune: How an accidental historian won over critics and shed light on two of Mormonism’s darkest hours

Thanks,

-Smac

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I'm currently about 1/4th of the way through this recently published book that chronicles the history of the church during the Nauvoo period, so forgive me if I don't have all of my facts straight.  While I have read many books that focus on this period of church history, including the official History of the Church, this book brings a new lens to this period due to new access to the minutes of the Council of Fifty. I may be mistaken, but I believe that this is the first widely available book to be published after being given full access to these minutes.

The author, Benjamin E. Park, gives special thanks to the church for its recent transparency of its history.  The minutes to the Council of Fifty were only made available for researchers in 2016.  Still anyone wanting access must be given special permission to gain full access.

I feel well enough informed in Church history, that very little surprises me any more and yet I found myself quite surprised with one of the claims this author alleges.  According to the minutes of the Council of Fifty, this council had serious problems with the U.S. Constitution and our current system of republican representative government and felt that the U.S. system of government had failed the saints. In fact, the council had gone so far as to draft a new constitution, under Joseph Smith's authorization, that they intended to replace our current U.S. Constitution with.  It was the plan of this council to supplant our current government with a theocracy with Joseph Smith as its head. And no this was no to be timed with the coming of Christ but was intended to take place before.

While I am quite aware of our history in both Missouri and Illinois and the suffering that the members of the church faced there. I am also aware of the many efforts leaders of the church undertook to seek redresses from the federal government for the mistreatment the church and its members received at the hands of Missourians and that these efforts failed.  I had no idea that there was a concerted effort to replace the government of the United States including the replacement of our U.S. Constitution with a completely new Constitution and government.

I do find it quite ironic that these historical events fly counter to our current patriotism of America and our collective love and support of the U.S. Constitution as a Inspired document.

Is this supplanting of the constitution by the church a well known historical fact and I'm just late to the party or is anyone else surprised by the claims of this author?

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/topic/council-of-fifty

Haven’t read your entire post yet, but when you say it’s the first widely available book to give full access to the Council if Fifty minutes, are you not considering the Joseph Smith Papers volume in which the minutes were first published a few years ago? Does that not count as widely available?

[Fair Dinkum]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Haven’t read your entire post yet, but when you say it’s the first widely available book to give full access to the Council if Fifty minutes, are you not considering the Joseph Smith Papers volume in which the minutes were first published a few years ago? Does that not count as widely available?

Of course it does...and I provided a link to the JS papers.  Also Smac97 referenced a book jointly published by BYU and Deseret book that pre dates this book.  I stand corrected.

[Fair Dinkum]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I think the Church has become a lot more transparent in the last several years.  I doubt it will ever be as "transparent" as is demanded by its critics and dissidents (who never seem to actually get around to defining what they want the Church to do, except to endlessly demand that it do "more").

I wonder how much of this is attributable to Richard Turley.  I just read a fascinating article about him in the Tribune: How an accidental historian won over critics and shed light on two of Mormonism’s darkest hours

Thanks,

-Smac

Yes I agree I also enjoyed this article.  I also listen to the Mormonland podcast interview of Richard Turley

[Fair Dinkum]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Yes.  Given the context of what the early Saints were facing, is this surprising to you?

And it may be fair to say that the "serious problems" arose primarily not with "the U.S. Constitution and our current system of republic representative government" per se, but instead arose with the egregious mobocratic torments endured by the 19th-century Saints, who were ostensibly entitled to some sort of protections under the Constitution (though the incorporation of the Constitution to the state - which either neglected the Saints or acted in concert with the mobs against the Saints - came much later).

I agree that the book and its assertions must be taken in light of the environment within which these events took place.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Also, what are your thoughts about the state of constitutional law during the Nauvoo Period (1839-1847)?

I believe that you are the lawyer (I think I read that somewhere)  But I am aware that States Rights were much stronger during this era than the federal government.  I do know that when Joseph Smith visited Washington DC and met with President  Fillmore seeking help to redress the wrongs endured by the saints in Missouri, Fillmore stated that he was powerless to help and didn't see how he could offer any help in that it was a matter for the States to resolve.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

The Deseret News reported on this in February 2018, and Nate Oman wrote about it in 2016.  As you seem to be trying to present this information for its "shock value," let's review a bit of what Prof. Oman had to say:

Sorry you interpreted my motivations as seeking shock value.  I was only seeking a conversation on this subject.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Oman provides a litany of examples of comparable efforts (Vermont's effort to declare itself an independent republic in 1791, the State of Franklin, Aaron Burr's 1804 plan "to detach the western territories of the United States to form a new nation with himself at its head," the 1810 "Republic of West Florida," etc.).  Oman then continues:

Does this context alter your calculus of these events?

As I've stated, The history needs to be seen within the context of the period and events in which it took place

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal About Mormon History was published jointly by BYU and Deseret Book in 2017.

Duly noted

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Could you explain the irony? 

I think there is are significant differences between the state of constitutional law as it existed and applied to the Nauvoo-era Saints versus the state of constitutional law today (the mostly-in-the-20th-century process of incorporating the Bill of Rights to the states comes immediately to mind).

I would agree

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I don't think we have an appreciation for the effects of the mobs on the early Saints, and the effects of governmental neglect/indifference (or worse, governmental collaboration with the mobs).  In contrast, the Latter-day Saints in 2020 enjoy robust protection of their individual and collective constitutional rights, such that I am very happy to be an American, and to celebrate the Constitution as an inspired document.  

While I accept that the saints were not completely innocent in Missouri, they're actions nor their rhetoric justified what happened to them there.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Your a few years late to the party, but not too bad.

More to the point, it's not that much of a party.  There's not a lot of "there" there.

Thanks,

-Smac

Better late than never right?

[JamesBYoung]

Rick (Turley) had a lot to do with opening the Church History Library archives over the last twenty years.

One should remember, however, that his bosses as Church Historian, first Marlin K. Jensen and then Steven E. Snow, both members of the Seventy, were the driving forces in opening the archives to all.

All of the major Restoration historians seem to have commented favorably and repeatedly on the amazing process and progress of transparency in Church records.

I remember the hoops I had to go through to get certain access in the late nineties.

[nuclearfuels]

21 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Is this supplanting of the constitution by the church a well known historical fact and I'm just late to the party or is anyone else surprised by the claims of this author?

The War of Northern Aggression is another example of organized attempts to supplant or some might say maintain the original Constitution.

Slavery at the time, ran counter to the Constitution. Ben Franklin argued that, after contributing to the framing of the Constitution which like most political pieces was not all agreed to cordially but grudgingly by many.

I havent read a lot about Church history but free exercise of religion, unredressed persecution. theft of property, murder of the Saints could have resulted in joining the Confederacy (it didn't); could have resulted in something like the FLDS (it didn't), but resulted in hopes for democratic change via grassroots.  If the scope of the change surprises you, what do you think of current succession movements (Brexit, Wexit, Irexit)?

I think the inspired COnstitution part is true and remains true - it's the enacting of that inspired document that some, including the Fifty, understandably IMHO disagreed with. 

 

 

[JamesBYoung]

The Fifty were identified by JS and BY as "the living Constitution" or the temporal counselors in the Kingdom.

Under Young's direction the Fifty literally ran Utah until it was organized into a territory.

[longview]

22 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

There is absolutely no secret to this fact among Saints who read their history.  Joseph Smith had the view that the President of the United States should have intervened to protect the Saints in Missouri, and that the failure to do so was a failure of the constitution and the federal government.  To the extent Joseph Smith spoke about the constitution in the D&C, it was meant to give some backbone to the President to act. 

What if Joseph Smith had filed suit at the appropriate venue and kept appealing all the way to the supreme court?  Would there have been more consideration by various segments of the country?  Could more pressure have been brought to bear on the Congress and the President?

[JamesBYoung]

Smith, Young, the members, etc., were millennialist believing (1) that Jesus was coming very soon and (2) the Saints were to create a Kingdom of God temporally and religiously where a (3) sanctified righteous body of believers would be raised up to greet Him.

[mgy401]

53 minutes ago, longview said:

What if Joseph Smith had filed suit at the appropriate venue and kept appealing all the way to the supreme court?  Would there have been more consideration by various segments of the country?  Could more pressure have been brought to bear on the Congress and the President?

The legal theories that empowered the federal courts to intervene in what had formerly been considered internal state affairs, only really started gaining traction with the passage of the fourteenth amendment after the Civil War.

Edited May 12, 2020 by mgy401

[Bob Crockett]

57 minutes ago, longview said:

What if Joseph Smith had filed suit at the appropriate venue and kept appealing all the way to the supreme court?  Would there have been more consideration by various segments of the country?  Could more pressure have been brought to bear on the Congress and the President?

The court system was very undeveloped at that point.  Those kinds of actions were not being brought. 

[Damien the Leper]

Andrew Hamilton provided a great review of the book at Without End.