Times and Seasons: "Who Shall Be Our Next President?"

I was checking the source of a quote attributed to Joseph Smith about voting and I found the article. It was an article written for the Times and Seasons newspaper in Nauvoo. The author is actually John Taylor, and the article is titled "Who Shall Be Our Next President?" I also found a digital copy of the article here.

This article is interesting, because 172 years ago, the LDS community felt like they could not vote for either of the major two parties. One of the parties was in conflict with their beliefs, and the other one they feared would use his executive influence to wipe the Mormons out of Missouri.

It has some good thoughts and I think it is worth a read. Or at least read the parts that I've highlighted.

TIMES AND SEASONS .

CITY OF NAUVOO

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1844.

WHO SHALL BE OUR NEXT PRESIDENT?

This is an enquiry [inquiry] which to us as a people, is a matter of the most paramount importance, and requires our most serious, calm, and dispassionate reflection. Executive power when correctly wielded, is a great blessing to the people of this great commonwealth, and forms one of the firmest pillars of our confederation. It watches the interests of the whole community with fatherly care; it wisely balances the other legislative powers, when overheated by party spirit, or sectional feeling; it watches with jealous care our interests and commerce with foreign nations, and gives tone and efficacy to legislative enactments. The President stands at the head of these United States, and is the mouth-piece of this vast republic. If he be a man of enlightened mind, and capacious soul-if he is a virtuous man, a statesman, a patriot, and a man of unflinching integrity; if he possess the same spirit that fired the souls of our venerable sires, who founded this great commonwealth, and wishes to promote the universal good of the whole republic, he may indeed be made a blessing to community. But if he prostrates his high and honorable calling, to base and unworthy purposes; if he makes use of the power which the people have placed in his hands for their interests, to gratify his ambition, for the purpose of self-aggrandizement, or pecuniary interest; if he meanly panders with demagogues, looses sight of the interests of the nation, and sacrifices the union on the altar of sectional interests or party views, he renders himself unworthy of the dignified trust reposed in him, debases the nation in the eyes of the civilized world, and produces misery and confusion at home. 'When the wicked rule, the people mourn.'

There is perhaps no body of people in the United States who are at the present time more interested about the issue of the presidential contest, than are the Latter Day Saints. And our situation in regard to the two political parties, is a most novel one. It is a fact well understood, that we have suffered great injustice from the State of Missouri, that we have petitioned to the authorities of that state for redress in vain; that we have also memoralized [memorialized] congress, under the late administration, and have obtained the heartless reply that 'congress has no power to redress your grievances.' After having taken all the legal, and constitutional steps that we can, we are still groaning under accumulated wrongs. Is there no power anywhere to redress our grievances? Missouri lacks the disposition, and congress both lacks the disposition, and power (?) and thus fifteen thousand inhabitants of these United States, can with impunity be dispossessed of their property, have their houses burned, their property confiscated, many of their numbers murdered, and the remainder driven from their homes, and left to wander as exiles in this boasted land of freedom and equal rights, and after appealing again and again, to the legally constituted authorities of our land for redress, we are cooly [coolly] told by our highest tribunals, 'we can do nothing for you? We have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into the coffers of congress for their lands, and they stand virtually pledged to defend us in our rights, but they have not done it. If a man steals a dollar from his neighbor, or steals a horse or a hog, he can obtain redress; but we have been robbed by wholesale, the most daring murders have been committed, and we are cooly [coolly] told that we can obtain no redress. If a steam boat is set on fire, on our coast by foreigners, even when she is engaged in aiding and abetting the enemies of that power, it becomes a matter of national interference, and legislation; or if a foreigner, as in the case of McLeod, is taken on our land and tried for supposed crimes committed by him against our citizens, his nation interferes, and it becomes a matter of negotiation and legislation; but our authorities can calmly look on and see the citizens of a county butchered with impunity;-they can see two counties dispossessed of their inhabitants, their houses burned and their property confiscated, and when the cries of fifteen thousand men, women and children salute their ears, they deliberately tell us we can obtain no redress. Hear it therefore ye mobbers! proclaim it to all the scoundrels in the Union! let a standard be erected around which shall rally all the renegadoes [renegades] of the land; assemble yourselves, and rob at pleasure; murder till you are satiated with blood, drive men women and children from their homes, there is no law to protect them, and congress has no power to redress their grievances, and the great father of the Union (the President) has not got an ear to listen to their complaints.

What shall we do under this state of things? In the event of either of the prominent candidates, Van Buren or Clay, obtaining the presidential chair, we should not be placed in any better situation. In speaking of Mr. Clay, his politics are diametrically opposed to ours; he inclines strongly to the old school of federalists, and as a matter of course, would not favor our cause, neither could we conscientiously vote for him. And we have yet stronger objections to Mr. Van Buren, on other grounds. He has sung the old song of congress-'congress has no power to redress your grievances.' But did the matter rest here it would not be so bad. He was in the presidential chair at the time of our former difficulties. We appealed to him on that occasion, but we appealed in vain, and his sentiments are yet unchanged. But all these things are tolerable in comparison to what we have to state. We have been informed from a respectable source, that there is an understanding between Mr. Benton of Missouri; and Mr. Van Buren, and a conditional compact entered into, that if Mr. Benton will use his influence to get Mr. Van Buren elected, that Van Buren when elected, shall use his executive influence to wipe away the stain from Missouri, by a further persecution of the Mormons, and wreaking out vengeance on their heads, either by extermination, or by some other summary process. We could scarcely credit the statement, and we hope yet for the sake of humanity, that the suggestion is false; but we have too good reason to believe that we are correctly informed.

If then this is the case can we conscientiously vote for a man of this description, and put the weapons in his hands to cut our throat with? we cannot; and however much we might wish to sustain the democratic nomination we cannot-we will not vote for Van Buren. Our interests, our property, our lives and the lives of our families are too dear to us to be sacrificed at the shrine of party-spirit, and to gratify party feelings. We have been sold once in the State of Missouri, and our liberties bartered away by political demagogues through executive intrigue, and we wish not to be betrayed again by Benton and Van Buren.

Under these circumstances the question again arises, who shall we support? General Joseph Smith. A man of sterling worth and integrity and of enlarged views; a man who has raised himself from the humblest walks in life to stand at the head of a large, intelligent, respectable, and increasing society, that has spread not only in this land, but in distant nations; a man whose talent and genius, are of an exalted nature, and whose experience has rendered him every way adequate to the onerous duty. Honorable, fearless, and energetic; he would administer justice with an impartial hand, and magnify and dignify the office of chief magistrate of this land; and we feel assured there is not a man in the United States more competent for the task.

One great reason that we have for pursuing our present course is, that at every election we have been made a political target for their filthy demagogues in the country to shoot their loathsome arrows at. And every story has been put into requisition to blast our fame, from the old fabrication of "walk on the water" down to "the murderer of ex-Governor Boggs." The journals have teemed with this filthy trash, and even men who ought to have more respect for themselves; men contending for the gubernatorial chair have made use of terms so degrading, so mean, so humiliating, that a billingsgate fisherwoman would have considered herself disgraced with. We refuse any longer to be thus debaubed for either party; we tell all such to let their filth flow in its own legitimate channel, for we are sick of the loathsome smell.

Gentlemen, we are not going either to "murder ex-Governor Boggs," nor a mormon in this state for not giving us his money;" nor are we going to "walk on the water;" nor "drown a woman;" nor "defraud the poor of their property;" nor send "destroying angels after Gen. Bennet to kill him;" nor "marry spiritual wives;" nor commit any other outrageous act this election to help any party with, you must get some other persons to perform these kind offices for you in the future.-We withdraw.

Under existing circumstances we have no other alternative, and if we can accomplish our object well, if not we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that we have acted conscientiously and have used our best judgment; and if we have to throw away our votes, we had better do so upon a worthy, rather than upon an unworthy individual, who might make use of the weapon we put in his hand to destroy us with.

Whatever may be the opinions of men in general, in regard to Mr. Smith, we know that he need only to be known, to be admired; and that it is the principle of honor, integrity, patriotism, and philanthropy, that has elevated him in the minds of his friends, and the same principles if seen and known would beget the esteem and confidence of all the patriotic and virtuous throughout the union.

Whatever therefore be the opinions of other men onr [our] course is marked out, and our motto from henceforth will be General Joseph Smith.