Some people do not know that Joseph Smith ran for president of the United States prior to his life being cut short by the assassins at Carthage Jail in 1844. One of the points of is platform was a challenge to the institution of slavery. Joseph saw slavery as being opposed to the principle of agency, and he sought to abolish slavery peacefully and gradually by 1850. His plan was to have the United States government sell public lands, and then use the proceeds of these sales to purchase the freedom of all slaves within the United States of America. This would avert war, compensate the slave owners, and set free the slaves.
Jeffrey Marsh shares his thoughts on Joseph’s platform:
Joseph’s political platform was visionary and far-reaching. Several of his proposals have since been adopted. Among his most important were the following:
He reviewed the noble sentiments about the founding of our nation as expressed by Benjamin Franklin, as well as the inaugural addresses of the early U.S. presidents, because the current president (Martin Van Buren) was leading the country away from the basic concepts of the founders.
He wanted to reduce the size of Congress by two-thirds, with one representative per million people, and also reduce congressional pay and power. “The farmer earns two dollars a day, and he lives honestly,” Joseph wrote.
He proposed a major prison reform. Prisoners would have to work to pay their debts to society. In addition, public-service sentences would be established for lesser crimes and turn penitentiaries into “seminaries of learning.” Part of Joseph’s prison-reform platform was later adopted when the “debtor’s prison” was done away with.
He wanted to abolish slavery by 1850 by selling off public lands and using the money generated to purchase the freedom of all slaves. Slaves would be set free, slave-owners would be compensated, and citizens would have land for their families. Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested a nearly identical plan ten years later and was hailed as a great humanitarian for doing so.
He proposed honor as the standard for service in the armed forces. He wanted to abolish military courts martial for desertion (which Abraham Lincoln also favored during the Civil War) but let deserters know their country would never trust them again.
He pushed national and state governments to exercise greater economy. Joseph desired a strong national economy with less taxation and judicious tariffs to protect U.S. interests.
He proposed building a dam at Keokuk, Iowa, to harness power from it. Construction on a dam at Keokuk began in 1910 and, when completed in 1913, was the largest electricity-generating plant in the world.
He wanted to create a national bank with branches in each state, and circulate a standard currency. Some aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system, established in 1917 (over seventy years after Joseph suggested it), approximate Joseph’s proposal.
He wanted to repeal Article IV, Section 4, of the Constitution, which allows governors to request federal intervention to suppress local violence, because governors may be mobbers themselves (as experienced by the Saints in Missouri and Illinois).
He wanted to avoid entangling alliances with foreign powers.
He proposed expanding the United States from coast to coast.
He suggested having a president who is not a party man but president of the United States as a whole and responsive to the wishes of the majority of the people who hold the sovereign power of government.
Of Joseph’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government, Elder John A. Widtsoe said:
This campaign document is an intelligent, comprehensive, forward-looking statement of policies, worthy of a trained statesman. Many of the Prophet’s recommendations have been adopted in the progressive passage of the years. All of them are reasonable and sound. . . .
The political utterances and practices of Joseph Smith point to him as a statesman—one from whom the statesmen of the day could win help. Looking back to his day, one cannot help marveling at the breadth of his vision and how sanely he dealt with the problems of the day. When he touched a matter, whatever its nature, Joseph Smith overtopped the crowd. He has not yet been recognized as he should have been, as a prophet-statesman. Everywhere he is revealed as one who did work beyond the ordinary powers of man. He was led by God. 1
Notes
- W. Jeffrey Marsh, A Prophet-Statesman: Joseph Smith in the Public Square.
Further Reading:
Casey Sep, How Joseph Smith and the Early Mormons Challenged American Democracy, The New Yorker, March 23, 2020.
Joseph Smith’s 1844 Campaign for the United States President, church website.
Jake Tapper, The First Mormon Presidential Candidate, ABC News, December 6, 2007. Under the heading “Sought to End Slavery,” Tapper writes, Smith’s solution was gradualist — to purchase the freedom of slaves with funds amassed by the reduction in the size of Congress, pay for members of Congress and the sale of public lands. He “was not an abolitionist in the strictest sense,” wrote Margaret Robertson in her Brigham Young University study of Smith’s campaign. “He felt slavery was not right and saw the need to abolish slavery to preserve the nation. But he also realized the need to save the economy of the South.” He “refused to take the extreme abolitionist point.”