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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 4
< Criticism of Mormonism | Books | Nauvoo Polygamy
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Contents
- 1 Response to claims made in "Chapter 4" (pp. 241-324)
- 1.3 Claim
- The book speculates that John Bennett's marriage record "may have been deleted" after his disagreement with Joseph Smith.
- The book speculates that Joseph and Clayton were "conspiring to alter" his wife's "marital status."
- Joseph instructed Clayton to send for Sarah Crookes, a close female friend he had known in England, to which Clayton replied that “nothing further than an attachment such as a brother and sister in the Church might rightfully entertain for each other” occurred between them. “But in fact,” G. D. Smith editorializes darkly, “Clayton’s journal recorded the depth of emotional intimacy he had shared with her."
- Author's quote: "…instead of waiting for [Sarah’s] arrival, [Clayton] married his legal wife’s sister Margaret on April 27. This was before Sarah’s ship had even set sail from England."
- The author states:
- The author states that William Clayton's journal " disclosed his own extracurricular romances."
- The author then describes Clayton’s 1853 mission to England, during which, “instead of persuading the flock of the correctness of [polygamy], Clayton contributed to defections and was personally suspected of ‘having had unlawful intercourse with women.’”
- Author's quote: "The prophet went on to ask Benjamin [F. Johnson] for his sister Almera [in plural marriage], provoking his protégé to comment that if Smith did anything to 'dishonor or debauch his sister, he would have Benjamin to contend with. As Smith casually deflected this threat, his 'eye did not move from mine,' Johnson reported."
- Benjamin Johnson is said to have been "[i]mpressed by the prophet's inner calm but not fully convinced."
- The author claims that Joseph "was able to wrap himself in the authority of the Bible…."
- The author speculates: "In a theological explication, perhaps partly inspired by convenience, Smith saw the church hierarchy as an extended family that would continue to live together in an afterlife community."
- Benjamin F. Johnson is claimed to be "representative of the mainstream in LDS practice" because he married seven wives…
- The publisher's response to this original claim generated a new claim: That Joseph "justified taking a monagamist's wife and giving it to a man who already had ten."
- Author's quote: "We do not know how long Joseph Smith had been contemplating polygamy, but the earliest conversations in which he explicitly addressed the topic were in late 1840 and early 1841."
- The author quotes Ann Eliza Young regarding events that happened in 1842: "She wrote that some of the events she related depended upon the 'experience of those so closely connected with me that they have fallen directly under my observation.'"
- John C. Bennett is claimed to have "publicized Young's clumsy attempt to entice [Martha] Brotherton" into plural marriage.
- Brigham Young is claimed to have had an "overall materialistic theology."
- Brigham Young is claimed to have ridiculed geologists who "tell us that this earth has been in existence for thousands and millions of years."
- Author's quote: "In part, Smith's organizational labyrinth helped keep the church together…."
- Brigham Young is claimed to have "worked out a scheme" in which church members were organized into companies of 'tens' and 'fifties'….[footnote] The author then notes that "[t]he first LDS divisions of this kind were in Missouri, where Samson Avard….told men it would soon be their privilege to "….take to yourselves spoils of the goods of the ungodly gentiles."
- Author's quote: "a history of the Mormons in the West would be … a history of a mad prophet's visions turned by an American genius into the seed of life."
- Author's quote: "When the opposition newspaper appeared and devoted space to polygamy, Smith and the ruling councils had it destroyed."
- Author's quote: "…since institutional histories have minimized the incidence and profile of polygamy (see chapter 1), it is easy to imagine that most men who entered polygamy did so in a cursory way." "In reality, the typical Utah polygamist whose roots in the principle extended back to Nauvoo had between three and four wives, with a higher incidence of large families."
- The author states that as Nauvoo was gradually depopulated, it became increasingly lawless.
- It is noted that "Mormons brought about 100 black slaves with them to Deseret, representing two percent of the total population, from 1847 to 1850" and that "[s]lavery and polygamy formed a witch's brew that isolated Deseret from the rest of the U.S. through its territorial period to he 1890s."
- Author's quote: "No doubt, [Heber C. Kimball's] hesitation [in further plural marriages] had been similar to Young's, due to the weight of responsibilities involved in running church operations and because of the adverse publicity from Bennett's disclosures."
- The author speculates that there would have been six plural husbands in Nauvoo by 1842 if John Bennett "had not been expelled…."
Response to claims made in "Chapter 4" (pp. 241-324)
| Chapter 3 (pp. 159-240) | A FAIR Analysis of: Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage", a work by author: George D. Smith
|
Chapter 5 (pp. 325-351) |
241-248
Claim
- William Clayton and plural marriage
Response- See below
243
Claim
- The book speculates that John Bennett's marriage record "may have been deleted" after his disagreement with Joseph Smith.
Response- No source provided.
244
Claim
- The book speculates that Joseph and Clayton were "conspiring to alter" his wife's "marital status."
Response- No source provided.
245
Response
- Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 32, 41, 52, 29, 556.
245
Claim
- Author's quote: "…instead of waiting for [Sarah’s] arrival, [Clayton] married his legal wife’s sister Margaret on April 27. This was before Sarah’s ship had even set sail from England."
Response- Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 94, 99, 107, 556.
247
Claim
- The author states:
…Clayton wrote on October 19 about needing to protect "the truth" by telling untruths, in this case the strategic charade of publicly rebuking someone while privately embracing them. Clayton wrote about Smith's advice: "Says he[,] just keep her [Margaret, his plural wife] at home and brook it and if they raise trouble about it and bring you before me I will give you an awful scourging and probably cut you off from the church and then I will baptise you and set you ahead as good as ever." [Italics and quotation marks as in The author's original.]
…Clayton wrote on October 19 about needing to protect "the truth" by telling untruths, in this case the strategic charade of publicly rebuking someone while privately embracing them. Clayton wrote about Smith's advice: "Says he[,] just keep her [Margaret, his plural wife] at home and brook it and if they raise trouble about it and bring you before me I will give you an awful scourging and probably cut you off from the church and then I will baptise you and set you ahead as good as ever." [Italics and quotation marks as in The author's original.]
Response
- Citation error
- The author's source is given as "Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 122 (emphasis added)." No italics have been added by the author to any portion of Clayton's journal. All italicized material is G.D. Smith's words, not Clayton's.
William Clayton (edit)
247
Claim
- The author states that William Clayton's journal " disclosed his own extracurricular romances."
Response- No source provided.
247
Claim
- The author then describes Clayton’s 1853 mission to England, during which, “instead of persuading the flock of the correctness of [polygamy], Clayton contributed to defections and was personally suspected of ‘having had unlawful intercourse with women.’”
Response- Smith, Intimate Chronicle, xlviii-l.
249
Claim
- Author's quote: "The prophet went on to ask Benjamin [F. Johnson] for his sister Almera [in plural marriage], provoking his protégé to comment that if Smith did anything to 'dishonor or debauch his sister, he would have Benjamin to contend with. As Smith casually deflected this threat, his 'eye did not move from mine,' Johnson reported."
Response- Johnson to Gibbs, Apr.-Oct. 1903, 28–29.
250
Claim
- Benjamin Johnson is said to have been "[i]mpressed by the prophet's inner calm but not fully convinced."
Response- Johnson to Gibbs, Apr.-Oct. 1903, 28–29.
252
Claim
- The author claims that Joseph "was able to wrap himself in the authority of the Bible…."
Response- No source provided.
252
Claim
- The author speculates: "In a theological explication, perhaps partly inspired by convenience, Smith saw the church hierarchy as an extended family that would continue to live together in an afterlife community."
Response- Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, 212; Extensions of Power, 163–97; Herbert R. Larsen, "Familism in Mormon Social Structure," Ph.D. diss., U of Utah, 1954.
253
Claim
- Benjamin F. Johnson is claimed to be "representative of the mainstream in LDS practice" because he married seven wives…
- The publisher's response to this original claim generated a new claim: That Joseph "justified taking a monagamist's wife and giving it to a man who already had ten."
Response- No source provided.
259-260
Claim
- Author's quote: "We do not know how long Joseph Smith had been contemplating polygamy, but the earliest conversations in which he explicitly addressed the topic were in late 1840 and early 1841."
Response- No source provided.
263 n. 54
Response
- History unclear or in error
- Wife No. 19, 74.
274
Claim
- John C. Bennett is claimed to have "publicized Young's clumsy attempt to entice [Martha] Brotherton" into plural marriage.
ResponseJohn C. Bennett (edit)
276
Claim
- Brigham Young is claimed to have had an "overall materialistic theology."
Response- No source provided.
277
Claim
- Brigham Young is claimed to have ridiculed geologists who "tell us that this earth has been in existence for thousands and millions of years."
Response- Citation error
- History unclear or in error
- Journal of Discourses 12:271 [Smith provides the wrong citation: should be 14:115.]
281
Claim
- Author's quote: "In part, Smith's organizational labyrinth helped keep the church together…."
Response- No source provided.
281 and 281 n. 86
Claim
- Brigham Young is claimed to have "worked out a scheme" in which church members were organized into companies of 'tens' and 'fifties'….[footnote] The author then notes that "[t]he first LDS divisions of this kind were in Missouri, where Samson Avard….told men it would soon be their privilege to "….take to yourselves spoils of the goods of the ungodly gentiles."
Response- Andrew Jenson, "Caldwell County, Missouri," Historical Record 8 [Jan 1889]: 701.
282
Claim
- Author's quote: "a history of the Mormons in the West would be … a history of a mad prophet's visions turned by an American genius into the seed of life."
Response- Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision: 1846 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1942), 92-101, 469.
285
Claim
- Author's quote: "When the opposition newspaper appeared and devoted space to polygamy, Smith and the ruling councils had it destroyed."
Response- No source provided.
289
Claim
- Author's quote: "…since institutional histories have minimized the incidence and profile of polygamy (see chapter 1), it is easy to imagine that most men who entered polygamy did so in a cursory way." "In reality, the typical Utah polygamist whose roots in the principle extended back to Nauvoo had between three and four wives, with a higher incidence of large families."
Response- No source provided.
295
Claim
- The author states that as Nauvoo was gradually depopulated, it became increasingly lawless.
Response- No source provided.
297
Claim
- It is noted that "Mormons brought about 100 black slaves with them to Deseret, representing two percent of the total population, from 1847 to 1850" and that "[s]lavery and polygamy formed a witch's brew that isolated Deseret from the rest of the U.S. through its territorial period to he 1890s."
Response- No source provided.
303
Claim
- Author's quote: "No doubt, [Heber C. Kimball's] hesitation [in further plural marriages] had been similar to Young's, due to the weight of responsibilities involved in running church operations and because of the adverse publicity from Bennett's disclosures."
Response- No source provided.
309
Claim
- The author speculates that there would have been six plural husbands in Nauvoo by 1842 if John Bennett "had not been expelled…."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- The author again presumes (with no evidence, and against a great deal of evidence) that Bennett's adulteries were ever sanctioned.
- John C. Bennett