Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Page	Claim	Response	Author's sources
241-248	William Clayton and plural marriage		See GLS FARMS paper
243	"John Bennett['s]…marriage record may have been deleted after he had a falling out with Smith…."	John C. Bennett	No source provided. No evidence that Bennett's relationships were ever sanctioned. [See also p. XX] above
244	Joseph and Clayton were "conspiring to alter" his wife's "marital status."	Loaded and prejudicial language	No source provided.
245	Joseph instructed Clayton to send for Sarah Crookes, a close female friend he had known in England, to which Clayton replied that “nothing further than an attachment such as a brother and sister in the Church might rightfully entertain for each other” occurred between them. “But in fact,” G. D. Smith editorializes darkly, “Clayton’s journal recorded the depth of emotional intimacy he had shared with her."		Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 32, 41, 52, 29, 556. G. D. Smith argues that Clayton was deceiving himself or Joseph and that his own journals prove it. Clayton’s journal noted of Sarah, “I don’t want Sarah to be married. I was much . . . tempted on her account and felt to pray that the Lord would preserve me from impure affections. . . . I certainly feel my love towards her to increase but shall strive against it. I feel too much to covet her and afraid lest her troubles should cause her to get married. The Lord keep me pure and preserve me from doing wrong.” Others have read the account quite differently: "Clayton soon admitted to himself that the situation could easily develop into something more than he could handle. . . . Caught in a war between his tender feelings for Sarah, on the one hand, and his love for his wife and his personal integrity, on the other, Clayton thus met another test of discipleship. This one was perhaps the most difficult of all, for it involved the temptations of the flesh that too often destroy both the reputation and the marriages of those who weaken. The attachment between Sarah and William caused inward struggles for both, but they avoided the obvious temptation." GLS FARMS Review
245	"…instead of waiting for [Sarah’s] arrival, [Clayton] married his legal wife’s sister Margaret on April 27. This was before Sarah’s ship had even set sail from England."		Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 94, 99, 107, 556. The author strives to paint Clayton as unfaithful to both his first wife (having already had an inappropriate level of emotional intimacy with another woman and the woman against whom he "conspired" with Joseph. GLS FARMS Review
247	…Clayton wrote on October 19 about needing to protect "the truth" by telling untruths, in this case the strategic charade of publicly rebuking someone whle privately embracing them. Clayton wrote about Smith's advice: "Says he[,] just keep her [Margaret, his plural wife] at home and brook it and if they raise trouble about it and bring you before me I will give you an awful scourging and probably cut you off from the church and then I will baptise you and set you ahead as good as ever." (Italics and quotation marks in original.)		G.D. Smith's source is given as "Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 122 (emphasis added)." Yet, the full text is that material in quotation marks. The emphasis in italics in Smith's material is all his own—none of the material about protecting "the truth" by telling untruths derives from Clayton or Joseph Smith. Yet, the use of quotation marks and italics, which Smith claims to have added to the primary source, makes it appear otherwise.* See left
247	Clayton's journal " disclosed his own extracurricular romances."	Loaded and prejudicial language	GLS FARMS Review
247	G. D. Smith then describes Clayton’s 1853 mission to England, during which, “instead of persuading the flock of the correctness of [polygamy], Clayton contributed to defections and was personally suspected of ‘having had unlawful intercourse with women.’”		Smith, Intimate Chronicle, xlviii-l. Two hundred pages later, we learn that this suspicion was only because of his [Clayton’s] “discussion of plural marriage” (p. 445), and his [Smith’s] own introduction to Clayton’s journals tell us that the charge was actually raised by an “apostate Mormon,” whom Clayton claimed had maliciously distorted his words, leading to what he called his life’s most painful experience. GLS FARMS Review [See also p. 445]
249	"The prophet went on to ask Benjamin [F. Johnson] for his sister Almera [in plural marriage], provoking his protégé to comment that if Smith did anything to 'dishonor or debauch his sister, he would have Benjamin to contend with. As Smith casually deflected this threat, his 'eye did not move from mine,' Johnson reported."	Plural_marriage_spiritual_manifestations#Benjamin_Johnson	Johnson to Gibbs, Apr.-Oct. 1903, 28–29. Smith downplays Benjamin's actual threat: "Brother Joseph This is Something I did not Expect & I do not understand it—You know whether it is right. I do not. I want to do just as you tell me, and I will try. But if I [ever] should Know that you do this to Dishonor & debauch my Sister I will kill you as Shure as the Lord lives" Joseph does not "casually deflect": "while his eye did not move from mine He Said with a Smile, in a soft tone ‘But Benjamin you will never know that. But you will know the principle is true and will greatly Rejoice in what it will bring to you…"
250	"Impressed by the prophet's inner calm but not fully convinced, Johnson said…."		G.D. Smith fails to tell us that Joseph promised Benjamin that he would know for himself. He is not impressed by Joseph's calm, but by Joseph's prophetic assurance of revelation directly to Benjamin: "But.how I asked. Can I teach my Sister when I mYself do not understand…'But you will See & underStand it' he Said and when you open your mouth to talk to your Sister light will come to you & your mouth will be full. & your toung lose." By not telling us this, G.D. Smith hides the true reason for Johnson's decision to approach his sister, and the fact that his conversion (as recounted by G.D. Smith) was a fulfillment of Joseph's prophetic promise.
252	"Smith was able to wrap himself in the authority of the Bible…."	Loaded and prejudicial language	No source provided. Joseph appealed to Biblical models, but always insisted that his authority was his own, from God, not derived from a Bible reading.
252	"In a theological explication, perhaps partly inspired by convenience, Smith saw the church hierarchy as an extended family that would continue to live together in an afterlife community."	Loaded and prejudicial language	Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: origins of Power, 212; Extensions of Power, 163–97; Herbert R. Larsen, "Familism in Mormon Social Structure," Ph.D. diss., U of Utah, 1954. G.D. Smith here suggests that Joseph's motivations were mercenary and pragmatic, rather than of sincere conviction. Smith ignores the literature on Joseph's deep-felt need and commitment to binding friendship in his personal life and theology. Such a pervasive theme in his personal and scriptural writing argues against "convenience" as his motivation.
253	[Benjamin F.] Johnson, representative of the mainstream in LDS practice, eventually married 7 wives…		No source provided. In fact, Johnson had more wives than even the average Nauvoo-era polygamist, and these were a small, highly selected group compared to polygamists in Utah.
259-260	"We do not know how long Joseph Smith had been contemplating polygamy, but the earliest conversations in which he explicitly addressed the topic were in late 1840 and early 1841."	Polygamy_book/Initiation_of_the_practice	No source provided. Joseph reportedly specifically addressed the matter in the first half of the 1830s.
263 n. 54	G.D. Smith quotes Ann Eliza Young regarding events that happened in 1842: "She wrote that some of the events she related depended upon the 'experience of those so closely connected with me that they have fallen directly under my observation.'"		Ann Eliza Young was born in 1844 in Nauvoo. It is thus impossible for her to have been a witness of events in 1842. Wife No. 19, 74.
274	John C. Bennett "publicized Young's clumsy attempt to entice [Martha] Brotherton" into plural marriage.	John C. Bennett	G.D. Smith again tacitly assumes that Bennett's account is reliable and truthful.
276	Brigham Young had an "overall materialistic theology."	Loaded and prejudicial language	Compare with a more informed treatment, which displays a proper grasp of the nuances in both Latter-day Saint and non–Latter-day Saint applications of the term, in Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 419–21. None
277	Brigham Young ridiculed geologists who "tell us that this earth has been in existence for thousands and missions of years."		Journal of Discourses 12:271 [Smith provides the wrong citation: should be 14:115.] This is a major distortion of the text. It completely inverts Brigham's meaning. Brigham endorses the idea of an old earth, and criticizes Christian teachers who insist on a young earth. GLS FARMS paper; maybe wiki?
281	"In part, Smith's organizational labyrinth helped keep the church together…."	Loaded and prejudicial language	No source provided.
281 and 281 n. 86	"[Brigham] Young worked out a scheme what placed church members in companies of 'tens' and 'fifties'….[footnote] The first LDS divisions of this kind were in Missouri, where Samson Avard….told men it would soon be their privilege to "….take to yourselves spoils of the goods of the ungodly gentiles."	Loaded and prejudicial language	Andrew Jenson, "Caldwell County, Missouri," Historical Record 8 [Jan 1889]: 701. G.D. Smith seems unwilling to let any anti-Mormon trope go unmentioned. Avard has nothing to do with plural marriage, but Smith seems unwilling to let an opportunity to make the Saints look bad pass by. The comment from Avard, without adequate context, is prejudicial and misleading.
282	"a history of the Mormons in the West would be … a history of a mad prophet's visions turned by an American genius into the seed of life."	Loaded and prejudicial language	Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision: 1846 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1942), 92-101, 469.
285	"When the opposition newspaper appeared and devoted space to polygamy, Smith and the ruling councils had it destroyed."	Nauvoo Expositor	No source provided. G.D. Smith gives the false impression that this destruction was the act of the Church—it was not; it was done by the civil government, including non-Mormons. Smith also presumes that the concern was only about polygamy. He fails to inform the reader about concerns regarding its libellous nature and consequent risk of mob violence. For example, Joseph was said to be a “blood thirsty and murderous…demon…in human shape” and “a syncophant, whose attempt for power find no parallel in history… one of the blackest and basest scoundrels that has appeared upon the stage of human existence since the days of Nero, and Caligula.” Smith acts instead as if the paper spoke only of polygamy.
289	"…since institutional histories have minimized the incidence and profile of polygamy (see chapter 1), it is easy to imagine that most men who entered polygamy did so in a cursory way." "In reality, the typical Utah polygamist whose roots in the principle extended back to Nauvoo had between three and four wives, with a higher incidence of large families."		No source provided.  Internal contradiction: vi: "...these same polygamists continued marrying to the point that they had acquired an average of nearly six wives per family. This model became the blueprint for forty years of Utah polygamy." Smith also fails to note that polygamists "whose roots…[went] back to Nauvoo," were a tiny minority. Two thirds of polygamous men in Utah had only two wives, >80% had no more than three. Probably 15-20% practiced polygamy at all. See GLS FARMS paper.
292-293	"Antagonism against the Latter-day Saints arose [in Illinois] as it had in Missouri, from bloc-voting influence on local elections and talk of taking over their neighbor's property because God had promised it to them."		Need info
295	As Nauvoo was gradually depopulated, it became increasingly lawless.		No source provided. The lawlessness of Nauvoo was in part due to the collapse of any police force when the Illinois legislature rescinded the Nauvoo charter. [citation needed]
297	Mormons brought about 100 black slaves with them to Deseret, representing two percent of the total population, from 1847 to 1850….Slavery and polygamy formed a witch's brew that isolated Deseret from the rest of the U.S. through its territorial period to he 1890s."	Race issues and the Church	G.D. Smith again raises an anti-Mormon issue briefly, but provides no context or references to further information. Given that half of the United States practiced slavery, Deseret slavery did little to alienate Utah from the country that polygamy had not already caused. Southern politicians used Utah as an distraction from anti-slavery sentiment: "Unable to alienate his Southern base by opposing slavery, [Democratic] President Buchanan began to see the political potential of the antipolygamy movement. In 1857, a Southern Democratic organizer wrote to the President: 'I believe that we can supercede the Negro-Mania with the almost universal excitements of an Anti-Mormon crusade....[T]he pipings of Abolitionism will hardly be heard amidst the thunders of the storm we shall raise.'" Slavery ceased with the Civil War, and thus any alienation from 1864-1890 was exclusively due to polygamy. It is difficult to escape the impression that G.D. Smith mentions this only to cast the Saints in a bad light. He provides no positive information, such as the fact that Joseph Smith ran on an abolitionist platform for President of the United States.
297	"The United States expressed its opinion of this secessionist enclave in the west by sending 2,5000 troops in August 1857…." This is another example of G.D. Smith's habit of presenting a short snippet of distorted, negative information without context.		No source provided. 1) G.D. Smith fails to tell his audience that the "secessionist" claims were false, and partly due to false and exaggerated reports provided by federal appointees of less than stellar quality: "If it was true that the magistrates appointed by the United States were held in contempt, there was sufficient provocation. Two of them...deserted their posts, a third was probably an opium-eater, a fourth a drunkard, a fifth a gambler and a lecher...." Furthermore, the worst federal judge "was a libertine with an exhibitionist flair. Bringing in tow a Washington prostitute, who shared his bench as well as his bed (he had abandoned his family in Illinois), Drummond flouted Mormon mores while endeavoring to establish federal judicial authority. After two years of contention [he and other judges] returned to Washington, furious and intent on revenge." 2) G.D. Smith also fails to tell us that Buchanan's decision to send troops was a political ploy to distract attention from southern slavery: "Unable to alienate his Southern base by opposing slavery, [Democratic] President Buchanan began to see the political potential of the antipolygamy movement. In 1857, a Southern Democratic organizer wrote to the President: 'I believe that we can supercede the Negro-Mania with the almost universal excitements of an Anti-Mormon crusade....[T]he pipings of Abolitionism will hardly be heard amidst the thunders of the storm we shall raise.'"
303	"No doubt, [Heber C. Kimball's] hesitation [in further plural marriages] had been similar to Young's, due to the weight of responsibilities involved in running church operations and because of the adverse publicity from Bennett's disclosures."		No source provided. When the relevant documents are revealed, it becomes apparent that Kimball was reluctant to practice plural marriage partly because he knew this was difficult for his first wife, Vilate. (Smith mentions these documents subsequently on pp. 304-305, but prefaces them by telling the reader that Kimball's hesitation was all about pragmatic or public relations issues. Yet, the documents strongly suggest that personal and family issues occupied much of Heber's concern.)
309	"…there would have been six [plural husbands in Nauvoo by 1842] if John Bennett had not been expelled…."	John C. Bennett	No source provided. G.D. Smith again presumes (with no evidence, and against a great deal of evidence) that Bennett's adulteries were ever sanctioned.