Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 7

Chapter 6

A FAIR Analysis of: Criticism of Mormonism/Books A work by author: George D. Smith

Chapter 8

Page	Claim	Response	Author's sources
416	"…the 1846 temple sealings, which re-comemorated previously conducted plural marriages, were carefully noted in Nauvoo temple records."	The Church has allowed these records to be seen by researchers and even published by Signature Books. This seems a strange course of action for an organization determined (as Smith repeatedly insists) to "expurgating" the history of plural marriage. Censorship_and_revision_of_LDS_history Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)	No source given. Censorship of Church History (edit)
423	In Nauvoo, Joseph "had appropriated church members' charitable donations for real estate speculation, buying low and selling high to those immigrants who could afford to pay."	Joseph had, in fact, signed a note for the land—thus going into debt himself. He sold land at variable prices, charging those who could afford more money so that he could give free or cheap land to the poor. This is not land speculation. See GLS FARMS paper.	No source provided.
429	"A friend of Nancy Rigdon, Francis had become concerned in 1842 over Smith's advances toward her."	G.D. Smith fails to tell us that Francis was, in fact, Nancy's boyfriend and her suitor. He also neglects to mention that Francis had contracted a venereal disease from a prostitute, had been seducing women under John C. Bennett's tutelage, and may have engaged in a homosexual relationship with Bennett. John C. Bennett	No source provided. John C. Bennett (edit)
435	"Dallin H. Oaks asserted that the 'abatement of newspapers publishing scandalous or provocative material' was not considered a violation of freedom of the press at the time….drawing no distinction between the destruction of a newspaper without a trial and a libel charge being tried in the courts."	The author's "reply" to Dallin Oaks is a non sequitur. Oaks (and Firmage and Magrum) demonstrate at length that both Illinois and U.S. law had ample precedent in case law and practice for the abatement of the Expositor. If the author wishes to dispute the legal scholarship marshaled by Oaks' 40 page review, it deserves more than a dismissive footnote, and he ought to interact with Oaks' article, not a brief summary in a secondary source.[1] Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Presentism#.22Freedom_of_the_press.22 Nauvoo Expositor	No source provided. Nauvoo Expositor (edit)	Edwin Brown Firmage and Richard Collin Mangrum, Zion in the Courts : a Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 112-13, 390n13 (Citing Oaks). ISBN 0252069803.
438–439	G.D. Smith follows William Law's claims about Joseph mismanaging or defrauding the Lawrence estate.	G.D. Smith completely ignores the primary documents on this issue, and relies only on Law's hostile, and demonstrably false, account. GLS FARMS paper [Mentioned elsewhere too….]	Cook, William Law, 120.
442	"Instead of evaluating a difficult past in order not to repeat it, the church leadership tried to separate its troubles from their apparent causes."	G.D. Smith's main evidence for this is Emma Smith's denial that Joseph taught polygamy (pp. 442-443), but this has little to do with the leaders of the Church. The Church remained well aware—as evidenced by nineteenth century sermons—that polygamy played a large role in their persecution. For example, after detailing the many factors that contributed to animosity between Illinois and the Mormons, Roberts concludes that events were “awaiting only the spark. . . . The spark came.” The spark was the Expositor, according to Roberts, since it involved “the new marriage system, involving the practice, within certain limitations and under very special conditions, of a plurality of wives, [which] constituted a ground of appeal to popular prejudices and passions that would have been absolutely resistless if the paper had been allowed to proceed. In the presence of such difficulties, what was to be done? In addition to declaring the existence of the practice of plural marriage, not yet announced or publicly taught as a doctrine of the Church, and agitating for the unqualified repeal of the Nauvoo charter, gross immoralities were charged against leading citizens which doubtless rendered the paper grossly libelous.”	No source provided.
445	William Clayton's "discussion of plural marriage was at once turned into a charge of having had 'unlawful intercourse with women.'"	Internal contradiction: G.D. Smith told us earlier only that in England Clayton "was personally suspected of ‘having had unlawful intercourse with women.’” He said nothing about this being due only to Clayton's discussion of the matter. Smith still does not tell us, though, that the charge came from an “apostate Mormon,” whom Clayton claimed had maliciously distorted his words. [See also p. 248.]	Smith, Intimate Chronicle, xlix-l.
446	G.D. Smith mentions that Andrew Jenson published about plural wives, only to have Wilford Woodruff complain about him having done so. G.D. Smith has continuously argued that the Church has striven to hide or suppress knowledge of polygamy.	He does not tell us that the reason Woodruff was worried was because at the time (1887) federal marshals were pursuing and jailing polygamists and their wives who refused to testify. Woodruff was trying to keep members out of jail, not trying to suppress polygamy. GLS FARMS article	Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 135.
447	Joseph F. Smith wrote to Orson Pratt that a “few years ago [I] tried to get affidavits regarding Joseph Smith and ‘celestial marriage.’ . . . I was astonished at the scarcity of evidence. I might say almost total absence of direct evidence upon the subject as connected with the prophet Joseph himself.”	If the church had scant evidence in 1875, what evidence did those compiling the History of the Church more than twenty years earlier have? This speaks directly to Smith's complaints about the History of the Church.	Joseph F. Smith to Orson Pratt Sr., 19 July 1875, Joseph F. Smith Letterbooks, Ms d 1325, Joseph F. Smith Collection, Church History Library and Archives.
449	"Mormons accepted as sufficient the explanation that Joseph Smith's death was due to an angry mob, without caring to know specifically what those Illinois neighbors had been angry about.	Smith cites five works for this claim. All five, contrary to his claim, discuss the role of plural marriage in Joseph Smith's martyrdom, as well as other facts. SEE GLS FARMS paper SOURCE DISTORTION	INSERT SOURCES here
450	"One LDS educator in 1967 wrote about the 'causes' of conflict in Nauvoo…without mentioning plural marriage."	SOURCE DISTORTION Contrary to G.D. Smith's claim, Godfrey's cited chapter is entitled "plural marriage," and he discusses it at length there and in his abstract and conclusion. For example: Peculiar religious beliefs held by Latter-day Saints caused some of the difficulties they experienced in Illinois. Such doctrines as plural marriage . . . led to further hostility. . . . Perhaps in retrospect both Mormons and non-Mormons were to blame for the disharmony. . . . The Mormons . . . engaged in a marriage system held by Gentiles to be adulterous. . . . Since polygamy was unannounced yet practiced, credance [sic] was given to the claims of former Mormons which cast even more doubt upon the Prophet’s character. It become [sic] almost impossible to overstress the role exscinded Mormons played in arousing people against leaders of the Church. SEE GLS FARMS paper	Kenneth W. Godfrey, “Causes of Mormon Non-Mormon Conflict in Hancock County, Illinois, 1839–1846” (PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1967), chap 7.
450 n. 106	Smith cites the paper as "Causes of Non-Mormon Conflict…."	Correct title is: "Causes of Mormon Non-Mormon Conflict…" (emphasis added)	Citation error See left

Endnotes

1. [note]  Dallin H. Oaks, "The Suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor," Utah Law Review 9 (1965): 862–903.