Following the attempt of Sidney Rigdon to become the "Guardian of the
Church," we will consider the efforts of William Smith, brother to the
prophet Joseph, to become its President. He was a member of the quorum
of the Twelve at the death of the prophet, though for some time his
conduct had been such as to bring him into disrepute among the Saints.
He was of a turbulent, ungovernable disposition; a man of fierce
passions and violent temper. When the saints were driven from
Missouri, in 1838, and his brother Joseph cast into prison, such was
his vindictiveness against the prophet that at a general conference of
the church held near Quincy, Illinois, May 4th, 1839, he was suspended
from fellowship; but was afterwards restored, mainly through the
pleadings of that same brother against whom he railed with such
bitterness of speech.
Shortly after the martyrdom of his brothers, Joseph and Hyrum, William
was ordained to the office of patriarch to the church, to succeed
Hyrum Smith, who held that office at the time of his death. The
associate editor of the _Times and Seasons_ in making the announcement
of William's appointment put it that he had been appointed and
ordained patriarch "over the Church." Whereupon a number of persons of
a disposition ever ready to take advantage of a word or make men an
offender because of it, begun to ask if William was Patriarch "over"
the church, did not that also make him President of the church. In the
issue of the _Times and Seasons_ following, the editor corrected the
error of his associate by saying that the notice of William's
appointment to be patriarch should have read patriarch "to" the
church, not "over" it. He, of course, also denied that William was
President of the church.[A]
[Footnote A: _Times and Seasons_, Vol. VI, No. 9 and No. 10, Art.
_Patriarchal_.]
Whether it was the discussion about William's appointment to be
patriarch "over" the church which first put it into his head to make a
claim to the office of President of the church; or that he took
advantage of the phrase "Patriarch over the Church," to bring forward
claims to the Presidency which he had previously entertained, may not
be accurately determined; but most likely it was the latter, because
on the occasion of the writer's visit to William Smith, at his home,
near Elkader, Clayton County, Iowa, late in the summer of 1880, he
claimed to have been anointed, appointed, and ordained by the prophet
Joseph to succeed to the office of President of the church after the
prophet's death.
William Smith, however, based his claim to the position of president,
mainly upon the fact that he was the brother of the Prophet, the only
surviving brother, and therefore he should succeed to his brother's
position. He claimed to find a precedent for this in scripture. In the
council which convened in the early Christian church to consider how
far the Gentile converts were under obligations to observe the forms
and ceremonies of the Jewish law, after Peter and Paul and Barnabas
and others were through speaking on the subject, James, "the Lord's
brother," is represented as saying:
Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from
among the Gentiles have turned unto God; but that we write unto
them; that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from
fornication and from things strangled and from blood.[A]
[Footnote A: Acts xv, 19, 20.]
The "sentence" of James here is regarded as the "decision" of the
council; and William Smith argued that if James gave the decision of
the council, he must have been the president of the council; and if
president of the council, then President of the church; and since
James was the Lord's brother and succeeded him in the Presidency of
the church, so in this dispensation, as in the former one, the
surviving brother of him who stood at the head of the church should
succeed to the Presidency.
But this sophistry is confronted by the stubborn fact that the Lord
Jesus had said to the Apostle Peter in the most direct terms:
I give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever
thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.[A]
[Footnote A: Matt. xvi.]
It is controverted also by all the facts of history which represent
Peter as the chief Apostle and as holding a Presidency over the entire
church. In modern revelation, too, the order in which the Apostles
have been named who have administered to men on the earth--has been
invariably Peter, James and John--Peter always named first as the
leader, the chief.[A]
[Footnote A: John the Baptist at the time he conferred on Joseph Smith
and Oliver Cowdery the Aaronic Priesthood (May 15, 1829) said that "he
acted under the direction of Peter, James and John, who held the keys
of the Priesthood of Melchisedek."--(Hist. Joseph, _Mill. Star_,
supplement, Vol. XIV, p. 15.)
"I will drink of the fruit of the vine with you on the earth, . . .
and also with John, the son of Zacharias...and also with Peter. James
and John whom I have sent unto you, by whom I have ordained you and
confirmed you Apostles and special witnesses of my name."--(Doc. and
Cov., sec. xvii 5, 12.)
"Again what do we hear? . . . the voice of Peter, James and John in
the wilderness, between Harmony . . . and Colesville . . . declaring
themselves as possessing the keys of the kingdom," (Doc. and Cov.,
sec. cxxviii, 20), and so throughout. It is scarcely probable that
Peter would thus invariably have been named first unless that had been
his place, as the chief, that is, the presiding Apostle.]
William Smith, however, did not command much of a following in this
first attempt to make himself a leader. His profligate life was too
notorious in Nauvoo to make it possible for him to wield much
influence even as a schismatic. His efforts at leadership on this
occasion resulted only in violent denunciations of those who would not
receive him, and his final expulsion from the church. At the general
conference held on the 6th of October, 1845, he was disfellowshipped
from the quorum of the Twelve, and on the 12th of the same month, more
of his wickedness having come to light, he was excommunicated from the
church. He shortly afterwards became associated with James J. Strang
and other apostates in an attempt to establish a church in the state
of Wisconsin, but that failed as we shall see.
Here it will be proper to note the support which Lucy Smith, mother of
William, gave to his claims to the Presidency. I regret being under
the necessity of quoting her in such a controversy, as it shows this
good and noble woman to have been very much mistaken in this matter,
and one must ever be sorry to see those who are upright mistaken,
especially in so grave a matter as this under consideration. One must
ever feel a delicacy in referring to the words and actions of the
mother of Joseph and Hyrum, of Don Carlos and Samuel H. Smith. She was
a woman who had suffered much for the work of God and the testimony of
Jesus; who in addition to toil, sickness, poverty and exile had lived
to see her two noblest sons murdered, and two other sons and her
husband laid away in premature graves, indirectly the victims of that
relentless persecution which followed her family and the church from
the beginning. These sufferings and her great age doubtless will
account for that weakness of mind through which, and not through any
wrong intent, I feel sure, she was led into this error of supporting
the claims of her son William. But glad as I would be to pass by this
matter for the sake of Sister Lucy Smith, I cannot do so, for the
reason that the Josephites quote her as supporting the claims of
"Young Joseph," and I wish to show by her support of William that she
did not do it.
The evidence that Sister Lucy Smith sustained the pretentions of
William Smith to the Presidency and not those made in behalf of "Young
Joseph," is found in the journal of the late President John Taylor, a
member of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles at the time in Nauvoo:
Friday, June 27th, 1845.
This was the anniversary of the day that Brothers Joseph and Hyrum
were killed and myself shot. We met together (the quorum of the
Priesthood) to pray, several of the Twelve were present. When I
returned [home] in the evening, Mrs. Taylor showed me a copy of a
vision that Mother Lucy Smith had, stating that her son William
was head of the Church; the following is a copy: