The Council of Fifty and Joseph as king

In April 1844 a secret council voted to receive Joseph as king while he ran for president of the United States.

What the Church claims

Joseph sought only religious liberty and civic protection for the Saints; talk of kingship is an anti-Mormon smear.

Once the evidence is in, this claim: Weak. The Council of Fifty's own minutes, published by the Church, record the vote making Joseph king. The claim that kingship talk is a smear does not survive its own archive. What apologists can still defend is the meaning, a theocratic and millennial title rather than a bid for temporal rule, and that is what keeps the claim from failing outright.

The record

  • The council, organized in March 1844, was to establish 'the literal kingdom of God on earth'; Joseph called its ideal a 'Theodemocracy, where God and the people hold the power'.
  • On 1844-04-11 Erastus Snow moved that the council 'receive from this time henceforth and forever, Joseph Smith, as our Prophet, Priest & King'; it passed unanimously.
  • Joseph appointed a committee to draft a constitution 'which should be perfect', then told them 'ye are my constitution, and I am your God'.
  • The council ran Joseph's 1844 presidential campaign with more than 300 electioneering missionaries and sent envoys to Texas, Britain and France.
  • The minutes stayed with the First Presidency until 2010 and were first published by the Joseph Smith Papers in September 2016.
  • The Expositor's authors specifically refused to 'acknowledge any man as king or law-giver to the church'.

The moving target

  • 1844-2016: Minutes held in the Presidency's vault, unavailable to historians.
  • 2016-09: Published the minutes in full, with an interpretation tying the kingship vote to temple anointing rather than political coronation.
  • current: Describes the council's purposes and the 2016 publication; the summary does not mention the kingship vote.

The exchange

JSP editors; FAIR

'King' referred to the temple promise that the faithful become 'kings and priests'; the council was preparatory to a millennial kingdom, not a rival to the United States; three non-Mormons sat on it.

The answer: The council was explicitly a political body drafting a replacement for the U.S. Constitution, running a presidential campaign and negotiating with foreign powers, and the man it 'received' as king was its chairman. Whatever the ritual layer, a church president secretly accepted a royal title over a political kingdom while asking Americans for their votes. The fact that the minutes were locked away for 170 years shows the Church understood how it looked.

What they get right: There is no plan in the minutes to overthrow the United States, and critics who describe a coronation of 'king of the world' with a crown and throne go beyond the record.

Joseph Smith Papers editors; FAIR

The minutes were published in full by the Church in 2016, unredacted, with a scholarly introduction. An organization running a secret shadow government does not print the minutes of it.

The answer: Publishing the minutes in 2016 is genuinely to the Church's credit, and it is also what makes the question answerable. What the minutes show is a body that called itself the Kingdom of God, drafted a constitution, sent emissaries to Washington, Texas and the Republic of Texas over a possible haven, discussed Joseph's presidential campaign, and on 11 April 1844 anointed Joseph king, priest and ruler over Israel on the earth. The claim under test is that talk of kingship was an anti-Mormon smear. It was not a smear; it was in the minutes, which is why it took 172 years to publish them.

What they get right: Three non-Mormons sat on the council and the minutes record real disagreement, which is not how conspiracies are usually run.

Both cases at full strength

The skeptics' case

Joseph's last months combined a secret theocratic council, a vote making Joseph king, a constitution to supersede America's and a presidential run. His opponents in Nauvoo knew of the kingship and said so in the Expositor; the Church kept the proof sealed until 2016.

The apologetic case

Joseph expected Christ's imminent return and was preparing an administrative shell for a millennial government while seeking a haven in the West; the kingship language was religious, and the council's documents show debate, dissent and non-Mormon members rather than conspiracy.

What would change this

Nothing needed; the dispute is over significance, not fact.

Closely related

Sources

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