Joseph Smith/Alleged false prophecies/Government to be overthrown and wasted

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Criticism

On 6 May 1843, Joseph Smith said:

'I prophecy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left for their wickedness in permitting the murder of men, women and children, and the wholesale plunder and extermination of thousands of her citizens to go unpunished, thereby perpetrating a foul and corroding blot upon the fair fame of this great republic, the very thought of which would have caused the high-minded and patriotic framers of the Constitution of the United States to hide their faces with shame.^[1]

Since it is more than 150 years since this prophecy was uttered, and because the US government still stands, critics claim that this is a false prophecy.

Source(s) of the criticism

• Marvin W. Cowan, "Prophets in Mormonism—Part 5," Ankerberg Theological Research Institute (2007), 2–3.
• Ed Decker and Dave Hunt, The God Makers (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1984),, 225, lines 26-33. (Detailed review)
• Edmond C. Gruss, Lane A. Thuet, What Every Mormon (and Non-Mormon) Should Know (Xulon Press, 2006), 203.
• "Mormons in Transition," Institute for Religious Research
• Walter Martin's "Religious Infonet," (accessed 3 January 2009),
• Mormonwiki.org (accessed 3 January 2009).

Response

This prophecy has been in three ways:

1. the prophecy's fulfillment is yet in the future
2. the prophecy was fulfilled and the government spared because sufficient redress was provided
3. the prophecy was fulfilled by the events of the Civil War

We will consider each below.

Timeframe?

The prophecy's fulfillment may yet be in the future. Critics have no grounds to declare how long it must take for this prophecy's fulfillment. Bible-believing critics may be guilty of a double standard if they await Biblical prophecies of more than 2000 years' standing, while insisting that the "few years" in Joseph's prophecy has expired.

Redress provided

Another school of thought holds that the United States did provide some redress to the Saints: "Though persecution and troubles continued to follow the Saints on account of their dealings with the government, eventually they were able to find a home in Utah, and were allowed to thrive as a community."^[2] As one author noted:

The prophecy as worded is obviously a conditional one. The United States did redress the Latter-day Saints to some extent for wrongs committed against them and thus the harshness of the fate of Missouri (or the United States) was reduced. The United States inviting the Saints to volunteer five hundred men to help in the 1846 war with Mexico might be considered partial redress because it provided desperately needed funds for the Latter-day Saints to finance the pioneer trek to Utah. President Polk at this time also promised Latter-day Saints safety as they travelled through Indian lands to the west. When the personal papers of James K. Polk, the U.S. president who asked Latter-day Saints to form a Mormon Battalion, were recently opened, it was found that he considered his action to help the Latter-day Saints. The granting of territorial status to the Mormons might also be considered a partial redress for wrongs.^[3]

The Civil War

Others believe that insufficient redress was provided, and that this prophecy has been fulfilled by the Civil War and its attendant events.

Missouri

Missouri suffered greatly during the Civil War. Over 1,200 distinct battles or skirmishes were fought on Missouri soil; only Tennessee and Virginia saw more action on their soil.

Between 1862 and 1864, the western parts of Missouri endured guerrilla warfare. Although guerrilla warfare occurred throughout much of the state, most of the incidents occurred in northern Missouri and were characterized by ambushes of individuals or families in rural areas. These incidents were particularly nefarious because their vigilante nature was outside the command and control of either side and often pitted neighbor against neighbor.

Among the more notorious incidents of guerrilla warfare were the Sacking of Osceola, burning of Platte City and the Centralia Massacre.

In 1863 following the Lawrence Massacre in Kansas, Union General Thomas Ewing, Jr. accused farmers in rural Missouri of either instigating the attack or supporting it. He issued General Order No. 11 which forced the evacuation of all residents of rural areas of the four counties (Jackson, Cass, Bates and Vernon) south of the Missouri River on the Kansas border to leave their property, which was then burned. The order applied to farmers regardless of loyalty, although those who could prove their loyalty to the Union could stay in designated towns and those who could not were exiled entirely.^[4]

LDS readers will recognize that Jackson county was notorious for its treatment of the Saints, and it was among those counties from which inhabitants were evacuated and a 'scorched earth' policy implemented. The commanding general ordered his men not to engage in looting or other depredations, but he proved unable to effectively control his soldiers, who were mostly Kansans eager to exact any revenge possible upon their Missouri neighbors. Animals and other property were stolen or destroyed, and houses, barns and outbuildings burnt to the ground. The area affected quickly became a devastated "no-man's-land", with only charred chimneys and burnt stubble remaining where once-fertile farms had stood.^[5]

If one read's Joseph's prophecy as referring at least partly to the government of Missouri, then it was fulfilled dramatically. Nothing remained in many areas, and government in some areas broke down almost completely as various factions struggled for control.

United States

In 1840, William Henry Harrison was elected as president on the Whig ticket. He was to die within a month of taking office, succeeded by Vice-President John Tyler who was in office when Joseph made his prophecy in May 1843. The Whig party was to fracture along pro- and anti-slavery lines, and by 1854 the northern Whigs left the party to join the new Republican party. Others were later to join the Constitutional Union party, dedicated to the avoidance of civil war. Following the Civil War, the Whigs in the south tried to regroup, but were soon absorbed into the Democratic party.^[6]

Thus, in the US government of Joseph's day, the Whigs had won the presidency and controlled the Senate. The Whigs were to be destroyed as a political power, never to recover. The United States government was to be destroyed, since the secession of the South arguably remade the American political order. Eleven states formed their own government as the Confederate States of America, and two states (Missouri and Kentucky) were split between pro-Union and pro-Confederate factions. Even following the war, the Reconstruction era undertook the abolishment of the Confederacy, the reestablishment of Southern representation in the Congress, and a revamping of the United States constitution to change the relationship of the states to the federal government.

Chief among the constitutional changes was the Fourteenth Amendment, which made all citizens of the states citizens of the United States. Thus:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This was a fundamental alteration of the government of the United States

Endnotes

1. [note]  Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 5:394. Volume 5 link
2. [note]  David Ferguson, "Miraculous Events in Early Church History," FAIR link
3. [note]  Gilbert W. Scharffs, The Truth about ‘The God Makers’ (Salt Lake City, Utah: Publishers Press, 1989; republished by Bookcraft, 1994), chapter 15. Full text FAIR link ISBN 088494963X. off-site
4. [note]  "Missouri in the American Civil War," wikipedia (accessed 3 January 2009) off-site.
5. [note]  "General Order No. 11," wikipedia (accessed 3 January 2009) off-site.
6. [note]  "Whig Party (United States)," wikipedia (accessed 3 January 2009) off-site

Further reading

FAIR web site

• Gilbert W. Scharffs, The Truth about ‘The God Makers’ (Salt Lake City, Utah: Publishers Press, 1989; republished by Bookcraft, 1994), chapter 15. Full text FAIR link ISBN 088494963X. off-site