Leading up to the presidential election of 1844, Joseph Smith and other church leaders counseled about who should get their vote. None of the alternatives seeming desirable, it was finally proposed that General Joseph Smith run himself. This he did, eventually finding a running mate in Sidney Rigdon. Neither of them were known to ever actively campaign. But Brigham Young, then kind of leading the newly organized Council of Fifty, gets Joseph to agree to let him ask for political volunteers to campaign for Joseph. These include, then, the likes of Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, Orson and Parley Pratt, Orson Hyde, and William Smith, who go to various parts of the country to campaign for Joseph and his presidential platform.
What was included in that platform? What was the Council of Fifty about? Who did Joseph say couldn’t go campaign and why? Who did Joseph find was conspiring to thwart his campaign? What ultimately happened with that? Who ended up winning the election and what did they do relating to Manifest Destiny? What does all this teach us about how we should act in relation to our own country?
Get the answers to these questions and more, also an original arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner, on this episode.
Good to have you back!