06-Joseph Smith's "Martyrdom"--losing a grip on the Saints, his power unraveling over last 14 months of his life

1    Joseph Smith's "Martyrdom"—losing a grip on the Saints, his power unraveling over last 14 months of his life

     See generally, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/intro/introduction-to-journals-volume-3

·        October 6-9, 1843 General Conference, Joseph Smith tries to kick Sidney Rigdon out of the First Presidency, but the members assembled vote against Joseph Smith and to keep Sidney Rigdon, History of the Church, Vol. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/minutes-6-9-october-1843/1

·        December 1843 Joseph Smith proposes that Jane Law, wife of his counselor William Law, be sealed to Joseph Smith as another wife.

·        January 8, 1844 Joseph Smith removes another First Presidency counselor, William Law. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/event/william-law-removed-from-first-presidency?highlight=william%20law

·        Joseph Smith takes no new "wives" after 1843.

·        March 1844 Emma Smith causes the Relief Society to publish the "Voice of Innocents" pamphlet condemning polygamy, also called "spiritual wifery" https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-1/1-10?lang=eng

o   On May 26, 1844, Joseph Smith blamed the Female Relief Society for stirring up questions about polygamy, which was leading to his undoing.  In denying claims swirling around him that he was engaged in spiritual wifery (polygamy) and an adulterer, Joseph Smith stated

"A man asked me whether the commandment was given that a man may have seven wives;— and now the new prophet has charged me with Adultery. I never had any fuss ​with these men​ until that Female Relief Society brought out the paper against adulterers and adulteresses"

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-26-may-1844-as-compiled-by-leo-hawkins/1, page 6

Brigham Young disbanded the Female Relief Society in 1844, following the murders of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith; it was not restarted until 1867 (though there were small groupings of women allowed by Brigham Young as soon as 1851).

·        March-April 1844 Joseph Smith secretly forms the Council of the Fifty, with designs for it to rule the world (and does this while his running for U.S. Presidency) https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/council-of-fifty-minutes-march-1844-january-1846-volume-1-10-march-1844-1-march-1845/378

“The time has now come to tell why we held secret meetings. We were maturing plans fourteen years ago which we can now tell... When God sets up a system of salvation, he sets up a system of government. When I speak of a government, I mean what I say. I mean a government that shall rule over temporal and spiritual affairs. Every man is a government of himself, and infringes upon no government. A man is not an honorable man, if he is not above all law and above government.”

- Joseph Smith, Jr., April 5, 1844 (General Conference) History of the Church, v. 6, p. 290, 292 https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/volume-6-chapter-12

·        May 26, 1844, Sunday Sermon on-board the "Maid of Iowa" steamship, in which Joseph Smith denies he's ever had more than one wife, despite the church having admitted he did https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-26-may-1844-as-compiled-by-leo-hawkins/1; https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints?lang=eng ("In Nauvoo, Joseph Smith married additional wives and authorized other Latter-day Saints to practice plural marriage.")

·        June 7, 1844, Wm Law, a brother, and two sets of other brothers publish the first (and as it turns out, only) issue of the Nauvoo Expositor (here's a scan of the original, http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/exposit1.htm#pg1c1b) [While it has a lot of negative OPINION directed at Joseph Smith, there is nothing factually false—it cannot therefore be libel or slander.]

·        June 10, 1844, Joseph Smith, as mayor (a government position), ordered the destruction of the printing press.  History of the Church, 6:432; https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-december-1842-june-1844-book-4-1-march-22-june-1844/153 [Joseph Smith certainly proved himself an "honorable" man, that he was above the law (the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution), even if he did use his governmental authority as mayor to prove it.]

·        June 23, 1844 Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith flee to Montrose, Iowa, with plans to keep heading west https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-3-willard-richards-journal-excerpt-23-27-june-1844/1 

·        June 24, 1844 goaded by Emma Smith to return to Nauvoo and face the Illinois authorities, Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith return to Nauvoo and give themselves up to the Illinois militia https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-3-willard-richards-journal-excerpt-23-27-june-1844/2

·        June 26, 1844 Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith are murdered while detained in the Carthage Jail

o     Willard Richards was only one wearing garments—Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith and John Taylor were not wearing them ("Heber C. Kimball reported in his journal that Joseph instructed those of the Quorum who were going to accompany him to Carthage to remove their temple garments prior to leaving." Heber C. Kimball, Journal, 21 December 1845, and Oliver B. Huntington, Journal, 22 April 1897; "[Elder Kimball] Spoke of Elder Richards being protected at Carthage Jail -- having on the robe, while Joseph [and] Hyrum, and Elder Taylor were shot to pieces." Heber C. Kimball's diary for 21 Dec. 1845 kept by William Clayton as cited in The Nauvoo Endowment Companies p. 117)

o   Joseph Smith was armed with and fired a pepperbox pistol from inside the Carthage Jail ("Joseph reached round the door casing, and discharged his six shooter into the passage, some barrels missing fire." History of the Church, Vol. 6, Chapter 24 https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/volume-6-chapter-24)

Questions:

6a-Why does the Church today not allow meaningful votes on what the First Presidency presents to it, as it obviously did in October 1843 when the membership voted to reject Joseph Smith's efforts to remove Sidney Rigdon from the First Presidency?

6b-The Book of Mormon (see Jacob 2) does not sanction polyandry, and where are all the "righteous seed" (children) from Joseph Smith's polygyny?

6c-The Doctrine and Covenants Section 132 ("the Principle") requires an added wife only be a virgin and only with first wife's approval.  Has the church all these years kept Joseph Smith's "polygamy" quiet because it included other men's wives (non-virgins) and Joseph Smith only got Emma's approval after the fact?

6d-Why did Joseph Smith lie on May 26, 1844 about only having one wife?

6e-Why has the Church for more than a hundred years suggested to members that Joseph Smith, though he received the Principle revelation, did not himself engage in polygamy when the History of the Church (finalized in the 1850s) made clear that he had taken many additional "wives"?

6f-The Book of Mormon teaches against secret societies. How are the Council of Fifty and those engaged secretly in polygamy not secret societies?

6g-What were the falsehoods—the "libels" and "slanders"—in the Nauvoo Expositor?

6h-Why do you think, if you do, it was justified that Mayor Joseph Smith and City Councilman Hyrum Smith used their governmental power to trample the 1st Amendment rights of free speech and free press, especially when there were no falsehoods, only opinions and characterizations that the Smith brothers didn't like?

6i-Why has the Church previously not included the fact that Joseph Smith had a pepperbox pistol and shot it as he lept out of the window at the Carthage Jail?