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Joseph Smith as a candidate for President...
Joseph Smith as a candidate for President...
Item # 685119
May 18, 1844
NILES' NATIONAL REGISTER, Baltimore, May 18, 1844
* Mormons leader Joseph Smith
* Election campaign for president
* 1st presidential candidate to be killed
Page 2 has a report under: "Political--Presidential" which discusses the various candidates for the presidency. Included in the discussion is mention of Joseph Smith, leader of the Mormons.
It is not known by many today that Joseph Smith ran for president of the United States in 1844. After several years of harassment and persecution in Missouri and Illinois, Smith wrote to five men expected to be candidates for the presidency, asking each what he would do to protect the citizenship rights of the Latter-Day Saints if elected. Three of the men responded but none promised to help the Saints. As a result, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles nominated Joseph Smith to be a candidate.
Some thought that the campaign was not a serious attempt to elect Joseph Smith, but rather an undertaking designed to raise public awareness of the plight of the Latter-Day Saints amid rising persecution in a country that boasted about its exceptional level of freedom.
The report mentions in part: "...No, we are mistaken. Joe Smith is also for rthe annexation, not only of Texas, but also of Mexico and Canada. By the way Joseph, like other aspirants, has his difficulties too, even amongst the phalanx of the Latter Day Saints--some of whom have rather roughly disputed his divine authority lately. The St. Louis Republicans tells of a fight at Nauvoo between Joe Smith and some of his followers, in which pistols were freely flourished...'The prophet was scratched considerably and frightened terrible.' Nauvoo papers give an account oa a meeting held there at Smith's grocery store to consult upon measures for promoting his election to the presidency. A number of speeches were made..." with a bit more.
Mentions in period newspapers of Joseph Smith as a candidate for the presidency are quite rare.
Four pages, 8 1/2 by 12 inches, very minor foxing, very light damp stain, good condition.
As noted in Wikipedia, this title: "...(was) one of the most widely-circulated magazines in the United States...Devoted primarily to politics...considered an important source for the history of the period."
Category: Pre-Civil War
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