INTRODUCTION

This is the story of a boy whose whole life was shaped by paternal
aspirations and maternal morality. It is the story of a youth who lived in a
maelstrom of tragedy, intrigue, conflict, and high drama. It is the story of a
young man who discovered that he could not escape his religious heritage in
worldly pursuits. It is the story of an adult who overcame his timidity as a
preacher to become a prominent ecclesiastical reformer and moral crusader. It is
the story of an old man who could look back with satisfaction upon a lifelong
campaign to clear his father's name of obloquy.

The boy, the youth, the young man, the adult, and the old man were all one
and the same individual. His name was Joseph Smith III, the eldest son of Joseph
Smith, Jr., the Mormon prophet. This is the story of why and how he spent his life
campaigning against Mormon polygamy and heading a reformed ("reorganized")
church in opposition to the Mormon Church in Utah.

But before taking up the course and causes of our protagonist's career, the
stage must be set and the dramatis personae introduced. The story commences in
early nineteenth century America.

To many nineteenth century Europeans, the United States of America
seemed a curious, even dangerous, experiment. Not only had the young American
republic discarded the venerable institution of monarchy, but the tradition of
religious establishment, as well. To many, the latter step may have appeared
more radical than the former. The phenomenon of a nation without an official
church was a departure from centuries of Western tradition. Not only that, but it
seemed to pose practical dangers. It was commonly held that morality and social
cohesion were dependent upon the authority of a shared religion. Could order and
virtue survive in America?

So wondered a young French nobleman when he landed in America in 1831.
To his pleasant surprise, Alexis de Tocqueville discovered an underlying unity
beneath America's apparent religious diversity. Despite the multiplicity of
churches, he found a common core of teachings. He concluded that disentangling
religion from official connnection with the state had worked to the advantage of
religion, that Americans were a highly religious people, that Christian morality
undergirded American society, and that in America "the sovereign authority" was
religious.¹

Another visitor to America was decidedly less impressed by American
religion. The same year that Tocqueville arrived in America, Frances Trollope
returned to England. Her three and one-half years in the United States had
convinced her that Americans were uncultured, according to the standards of
genteel English society. Where Tocqueville had marvelled at the pervasive
influence of American religion, Mrs. Trollope lamented its vulgarity. She
complained of the "almost endless variety of religious factions," in which
leadership usually devolved upon "the most intriguing and factious individual." In
her opinion, the most lamentable feature of American religion was revivalism.
She found much to complain of in revivals: emotionalism, uneducated clergy,
familiarity between the sexes, and—above all—lack of good breeding.²

However much Alexis de Tocqueville and Frances Trollope may have
differed in their reactions, their observations pinpoint three important facts about
Antebellum American religion. First, Americans were free to preach and practice
their religious beliefs without interference from the state. Second,
denominationalism flourished in this "free church" environment. Third, revivalism
was the principal vehicle by which the expanding young republic was evangelized.
Revivalism emphasized the primacy of the individual experience of conversion.
As such, it was uniquely adapted to an environment of religious freedom.
Methodist, and like-minded Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregationalist preachers
actively promoted revivals and taught their listeners that they must personally
choose to become Christians. According to their understanding, all regenerated
individuals were members of the Universal Church, and each denomination was a
legitimate part of the true church. Preachers from various denominations would
cooperate in the work of revivals, but once converts had been won, there was
often fierce competition to secure their adherence to a particular denomination.³

When Alexis de Tocqueville and Frances Trollope visited America, the
nation was undergoing tremendous religious ferment. The popular evangelical
denominations, fueled by revivalism, were experiencing rapid growth, but
unconventional forms of religion were flourishing also. One historian has
described this as a time of "eager expectancy, unbridled enthusiasm, and restless
ferment," in which "many new ways to heaven . . . were being fashioned." It was
also an era in which advocates of reform and community attempted to give
earthly embodiment to heavenly idealism. America's freedom, open space, and
spirit of experimentation provided an ideal environment for the development of
new religious movements.⁴

Ironically, revivalism itself contributed to the growth of new religious
sects in Antebellum America. In the wake of revivals there were always some
who had not gained assurance of salvation. These anxious individuals were likely
to prove receptive to new prophets who offered alternative pathways to spiritual
happiness. Not only the climate of religious searching and excitement, but
several distinct emphases of revivalism contributed to the birth of new religious
movements.

The spirit of evangelical revivalism contained four distinct emphases:
first, emotionalism and direct inspiration; second, perfect sanctification as a
possibility or necessity for Christians; third, universalism (as opposed to Calvinist
particularism), and fourth, millenarian expectation. The reforms, communal
experiments, and new sects spawned in the wake of revivalism took one or more
of these emphases to an extreme.⁵ Nowhere was this more apparent than in
upstate New York.

During the first four decades of the nineteenth century, upstate New York
was one of the most heavily evangelized areas in America. Wave upon wave of
revivals swept over the western part of the state, until the revivalists themselves
came to call it the "Burned-over District." For a variety of social and religious
reasons, the Burned-over District was given to radical enthusiasms.⁶ Many new
sects flourished in the Burned-over District.⁷ Among these were the Shakers,
Jemima Wilkinson's Community of the Public Universal Friend, Millerism, the
Oneida Community of John Humphrey Noyes, Spiritualism, and Swedenborgianism.
Revivalistically oriented offshoots of evangelical denominations also flourished,
as did the "Christian" movement. Other "isms" found a ready following, ranging
from mesmerism and phrenology to abolitionism and feminism to temperance and
health reforms.⁸

Viewed retrospectively, the most important of the sects spawned in the
Burned-over District was Mormonism. A remarkably eclectic religion,
Mormonism drew together numerous strands of religious, social, political, and folk
beliefs current in the Burned-over District in the 1820s.

The prophet-founder of Mormonism was Joseph Smith, Jr. Born in 1805 in
Sharon, Vermont, the future prophet's family joined the westward stream of
migrating Yankees following the disastrous farming season of 1816 ("Eighteen-
hundred-and-froze-to-death"). Ten year-old Joseph and his family settled in
Genesee County, New York, in the heart of the Burned-over District.

As a young man, Joseph Smith, Jr. was acutely aware of the religious
claims and controversies which agitated the Burned-over District. He himself
held aloof from joining any of the competing denominations. According to a
retrospective account, he was anxious about which church taught the truth. He
sought divine guidance and was instructed to remain apart from all of the
churches in preparation for a special mission.⁹

The first step in this special mission was the translation of the Book of
Mormon. Joseph Smith's later account stated that after a period of testing he was
guided by an angel to the location of long-buried golden plates. These plates—
which were delivered back into angelic hands upon the completion of the
translation—contained a history of pre-Columbian America. According to the
Book of Mormon, a Jew named Lehi left Jerusalem with his family around 600
B.C. and sailed across the Pacific to America. His numerous progeny peopled the
continent, built great civilizations, and fought many wars. While the Book of
Mormon embraced the then-popular notion of the Hebraic origins of the American
Indians, its principal appeal to Joseph Smith's contemporaries lay in its religious
teachings. The book related that the Gospel was known in ancient America, and
that Christ's Church once flourished among some of the continent's inhabitants.
The Book of Mormon supplemented the Bible, and explained clearly many points of
theological controversy. Some critics thought that it explained them too clearly.
Alexander Campbell complained that the Book of Mormon gave precise answers to
all the great controversies which had agitated the Burned-over District in the
1820s:

infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance,
justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting,
penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the
ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize,
and even the question of free masonry, republican government and the
rights of man . . . .¹⁰

In 1830 the completed Book of Mormon was published. On April 6, 1830, a
small band of believers in the new revelation formally organized the "Church of
Christ" in Fayette, New York. Joseph Smith was the acknowledged leader of the
church. Already he was receiving revelations to deal with problems as they arose
in his fledgling church.

Almost from the start, Joseph Smith's followers were the objects of scorn
and persecution. They were referred to derisively as "Mormons." Most
Protestants scoffed at the idea of a new revelation in addition to the Bible. The
Mormon exercise of charismatic gifts such as tongues and healing seemed radical
to many of their neighbors. Their millenarian beliefs were unique: not only did
they hold to premillennialism at a time when postmillennialism was the dominant
Protestant interpretation, but they held that Christ would reign for one thousand
years from an American City of Zion. The Latter Day Saints—as they preferred
to be called—had separatistic and exclusivistic tendencies which tended to foster
resentment among their neighbors.

To a minority of Americans, however, the new Mormon religion proved
appealing. Amidst the contention of the competing denominations and sects,
Mormonism claimed to be the divine restoration of the one true church, a church
with authoritative answers to disputed questions, a church which enjoyed the
charismatic gifts of apostolic Christianity, a church answering to the pattern
found in the New Testament.¹¹

Soon after the organization of the Church of Christ,¹² Sidney Rigdon
became a convert. Rigdon was a prominent Campbellite preacher in the Western
Reserve who recently had broken with Campbell because of his advocacy of
premillennialism and communitarianism. Most of Rigdon's community at Kirtland,
Ohio followed him into Mormonism. ¹³

In the spring of 1831, Joseph Smith and the small band of New York Saints
moved to Kirtland. The nucleus of about one hundred Mormons in Kirtland
provided a stronger base for the church. For about seven years Kirtland was to be
the de facto headquarters of Mormonism. By 1835 the Mormon colony at Kirtland
had grown to between fifteen hundred and two thousand souls. ¹⁴

In Kirtland, Joseph Smith continued to receive revelations. Many of these
were collected and published in the Doctrine and Covenants, a third volume of
Mormon scripture ranking alongside the Bible and Book of Mormon. Both Mormon
theology and ecclesiastical organization underwent continuing evolution in
Kirtland, as more and more revelations were received. Out of "freedom's
ferment" in the Burned-over District, a uniquely American religion had arisen.

It was in Kirtland that a son was born to Joseph Smith and his wife Emma
in 1832. He was named "Joseph," after his father and grandfather. From both
parents the lad inherited a quick intelligence. From his mother he derived his dark
hair and brown eyes. From his father he inherited a muscular constitution and an
aquiline nose. More than his physical and intellectual attributes, however, little
Joseph Smith III inherited a religious legacy. Neither he nor his contemporaries
could forget that he was the son of the Mormon prophet. What follows is the
story of his struggle with that legacy.