Joseph Smith's campaign for President of the United States

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Criticism

Critics charge that Joseph Smith's decision to run for President of the United States in 1844 shows him to be either a megalomaniac bent on amassing ever more power, or a fanatic with delusions of grandeur.

Source(s) of the Criticism

• Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1945, 354.
• Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois from Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847, 2 vols. (1854; reprint, Chicago: Lakeside, 1946), 2:157.
• Henry Mayhew, History of the Mormons; or, Latter-day Saints. With Memois of the Life and Death of Joseph Smith, the "American Mahomet" (Auburn, N.Y.: Derby and Miller, 1852), 163–167.
• Eduard Meyer, "The Origin and History of the Mormons: With Reflections on the Beginnings of Islam and Christianity," translated by Heinz F. Rahde and Eugene Seaich, 123–25, typescript, BYU Special Collections.
• Bruce Kinney, Mormonism: The Islam of America (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1912).
• I. Woodbridge Riley, The Founder of Mormonism: A Psychological Study of Joseph Smith, Jr. (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1902).
• T.B.H. Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints (New York: D. Appleton, 1873), 147.

Response

The response should be brief and summary in nature.

Conclusion

Joseph's reasons for running for president included the following:^[1]

1. Joseph wanted to provide the Saints with a political candidate they could support. Rather than "holding their nose" and voting for the "lesser of two evils," or abstaining from participation in the process, Joseph offered himself as an option.
2. Joseph's candidacy meant that Mormons would support neither Whigs or Democrats; this could help avert anti-Mormon sentiment in Illinois, since the party which did not receive LDS support would have further reason to resent the Mormons, who were numerous enough to hold a "balance of power" in the state.
3. Joseph hoped to publicize the Saints' grievances regarding their dispossession by the state of Missouri. Other efforts at legal redress had failed, and so Joseph saw the campaign for the Presidency as a means of attracting attention, with hopes that the public's sentiments could be appealed to directly.
4. Joseph knew that running for President would attract attention. This allowed him to preach his religious and political ideals on the national stage.

Further reading

1. [note]  Margaret C. Robertson, "The Campaign and the Kingdom: The Activities of the Electioneers in Joseph Smith's Presidential Campaign," Brigham Young University Studies 39 no. 3 (2000), 148.

FAIR wiki articles

• The Council of Fifty

FAIR web site

• FairMormon Topical Guide: Political Issues FairMormon link
  

External links

• Margaret C. Robertson, "The Campaign and the Kingdom: The Activities of the Electioneers in Joseph Smith's Presidential Campaign," Brigham Young University Studies 39 no. 3 (2000), 147–180. (Key source)

Printed material

• Printed resources whose text is not available online