Joseph Smith for President

The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom

Spencer W. McBride

Offers the most comprehensive study of Smith's presidential campaign ever published
Demonstrates the evolving role of religion in American politics in the nineteenth century
Draws upon the extensive work of the Joseph Smith Papers Project

Joseph Smith for President

The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom

Spencer W. McBride

Description

By the election year of 1844, Joseph Smith, the controversial founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had amassed a national following of some 25,000 believers. Nearly half of them lived in the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, where Smith was not only their religious leader but also the mayor and the commander-in-chief of a militia of some 2,500 men. In less than twenty years, Smith had helped transform the American religious landscape and grown his own political power substantially. Yet the standing of the Mormon people in American society remained unstable. Unable to garner federal protection, and having failed to win the support of former president Martin Van Buren or any of the other candidates in the race, Smith decided to take matters into his own hands, launching his own bid for the presidency. While many scoffed at the notion that Smith could come anywhere close to the White House, others regarded his run—and his religion—as a threat to the stability of the young nation. Hounded by mobs throughout the campaign, Smith was ultimately killed by one—the first presidential candidate to be assassinated.

Though Joseph Smith's run for president is now best remembered—when it is remembered at all—for its gruesome end, the renegade campaign was revolutionary. Smith called for the total abolition of slavery, the closure of the country's penitentiaries, and the reestablishment of a national bank to stabilize the economy. But Smith's most important proposal was for an expansion of protections for religious minorities. At a time when the Bill of Rights did not apply to individual states, Smith sought to empower the federal government to protect minorities when states failed to do so.

Spencer W. McBride tells the story of Joseph Smith's quixotic but consequential run for the White House and shows how his calls for religious freedom helped to shape the American political system we know today.

Joseph Smith for President

The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom

Spencer W. McBride

Introduction
Religious Intolerance in the “Land of the Free”

Chapter One
A Lesson in Political Negotiations

Chapter Two
Shattered American Idealism

Chapter Three
A City-State on a Hill

Chapter Four
The Specter of Missouri

Chapter Five
Mobocracy

Chapter Six
Presidential Hopefuls

Chapter Seven
A Political Tract

Chapter Eight
The Political Kingdom of God

Chapter Nine
Electioneering Missionaries

Chapter Ten
Vice Presidents and Protest Candidates

Chapter Eleven
Convention Season

Chapter Twelve
American Royalty

Chapter Thirteen
More Conventions

Chapter Fourteen
Assassination

Chapter Fifteen
Aftermath

Conclusion
Systemic Religious Inequality

Notes

Index

Joseph Smith for President

The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom

Spencer W. McBride

Author Information

Spencer W. McBride, Associate Managing Historian, The Joseph Smith Papers

Spencer W. McBride is an Associate Managing Historian of the Joseph Smith Papers Project and the author of Pulpit and Nation: Clergymen and the Politics of Revolutionary America. He has written about the evolving role of religion in American politics for the Washington Post and the Deseret News. He is also the creator and host of The First Vision: A Joseph Smith Papers Podcast.

Joseph Smith for President

The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom

Spencer W. McBride

Reviews and Awards

"McBride's narrative verve illustrates through anecdote and case study the reasons why the myth of religious freedom failed Joseph Smith" -- Matthew Bowman, Journal of Church and State

"This is an applaudable case study of the fate of an unpopular religious minority with Protestantism as the de facto established church." -- T. G. Alexander, CHOICE

"Joseph Smith for President is beautifully written and delivers throughout the correct amount of context without stalling the narrative flow, making it widely readable, yet incisively informative. McBride effectively engages his training and scholarship of the early republic and his extensive knowledge of the primary source material regarding Joseph Smith to create the most comprehensive exploration yet of Smith's presidential campaign in its wider American historical context." -- Civil War Book Review

"Overall, McBride's excellent treatise using Joseph Smith's campaign as an "indispensable lens" on the "persistence of religious inequality in American society," delivers. For those studying antebellum intersections of religion and politics, particularly non-Protestant religions, this book is a must read." -- Derek R. Sainsbury, Civil War Book Review

"In Spencer McBride's skilled hands, the story of Joseph Smith's quixotic 1844 presidential campaign reveals new aspects of the radically circumscribed nature of liberty in the American Republic. This marvelous volume combines a compelling history of the early LDS Church with a pointed critique of the myth of American religious freedom." -- Amy S. Greenberg, author of Lady First: The World of First Lady Sarah Polk

"America has had no shortage of quixotic presidential candidates who, in retrospect, reflect broader cultural anxieties. But perhaps no campaign appeared as impractical or unlikely as the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith's in 1844. In this meticulously detailed and clearly written book, Spencer McBride has dissected this seemingly outlandish episode in order to reveal wider lessons about the American culture that made it possible as well as the political tradition that connects it to today." -- Benjamin E. Park, author of Kingdom of Nauvoo

"Spencer McBride obliges us to see Joseph Smith in a stark new light: not merely as a prophet who was assassinated, but as a presidential candidate whose campaign could not be separated from the force of religious persecution. From this illuminating, deeply researched account emerges a picture of the dark underbelly of states' rights abuses and mob violence that shaped the election of 1844. It's a story well-suited to our own intolerant times." -- Nancy Isenberg, author of White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

"Joseph Smith for President takes readers inside one of the most unlikely presidential campaigns in American history. Spencer McBride shows us Joseph Smith parading on the shoulders of his followers, issuing an anti-slavery platform, and asking to be put at the head of a 100,000-man army. This is an eloquent and richly detailed portrait of the political conflict between the early Latter-day Saints and their political opponents." -- John Turner, author of Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet