Someday your grandkids will ask you, “What did you do during the Great Stay-at-Home Quarantine of 2020?” Besides eating every two hours, I re-watched the first season of The West Wing. It’s a fantasy depicting my country led by a principled and intelligent man. I watched the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. These Klingon-speaking Klingons have no honor. And I read Benjamin E. Park’s new book, Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier (Liveright Publishing, 2020). The book really helps a Mormon reader understand what happened in Nauvoo and what went wrong in Nauvoo. Here is a short review.
What Happened in Nauvoo
The book is long on analysis and long on historical context (what else was going on in America that influenced what happened to the Church in Nauvoo) but a little short on the detailed events in Nauvoo. This works fine if you have read a book on Nauvoo before, maybe Glen Leonard’s Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise (Deseret Book, 2002), or even the relevant chapters in a one-volume history of the LDS Church. I have to think a person coming to Kingdom of Nauvoo who had no prior acquaintance with the tale of Nauvoo might not follow the events very well. That’s an observation, not a criticism, of the book. I’m sure the author could have added a hundred pages of additional detail on some of the events and developments in Nauvoo, but a reader can find that elsewhere. One of the nice things about the book is that it is short enough to get through before the reader gets worn out (think Rough Stone Rolling).
Seen simply as a city-building project, Nauvoo was wildly successful. It benefited from a nice location along the Mississippi (at least after the swamps were drained), from Mormon immigration from elsewhere in the US and from England, and from general Mormon industriousness. It went from a few huts in 1838 to a small city that dominated its region of Illinois in 1845, at least numerically. The Nauvoo Temple was impressive, built on high ground and visible for miles. But much of what happened in Nauvoo happened in the offices on the second story of Joseph Smith’s red brick store.
As Park relates, “The engine room of this new society would be Joseph Smith’s office, located on the second floor of a recently completed dry good store” (p. 87). That’s where work on the Book of Abraham project was centered. That’s where Freemasonry was established in Nauvoo and, shortly thereafter, Joseph’s LDS endowment was first presented. That’s where the Relief Society was established. Polygamous marriages were arranged and performed in that office. It was that second floor office, not the Nauvoo Temple, that was ground zero for what happened in Nauvoo.
What Went Wrong in Nauvoo
The big question for most readers is a simple one: What went wrong? And by wrong, we mean spectacularly wrong: Joseph Smith was not just assassinated but killed while in state custody, after visiting with the governor only hours before. By the time the Saints in Nauvoo were leaving town in 1846, it was almost under siege. There were cannons pointed at Nauvoo. The orthodox Mormon explanation is that the Gentiles were persecuting the Saints or that Satan was whipping up opposition to God’s Kingdom. A historian has to look a little deeper to explain what really happened. After all, it’s not everyday that a state more or less expels a city and its citizens.
One problem was polygamy. Joseph’s insistence on moving forward with the polygamy project was full of risks, and he knew it. That’s why he kept the practice secret (as in never publicly acknowledging he was doing it) right up until that day of his death. But it wasn’t just bad publicity that was a risk. As detailed by Park, key figures within the Mormon hierarchy (when they eventually found out about it) did not support the project, including Emma Smith, Hyrum Smith (initially), Sidney Rigdon, and William Law (in the First Presidency). As Joseph brought additional men and women into the secret practice, it became something of an open secret inside Nauvoo that something was going on — but it was never clear what was rumor and speculation versus what was fact. The project as a whole eroded the credibility of the leadership and the moral foundation of the town.
And here is what is particularly relevant: This wasn’t a case of outside pressure or persecution. The whole polygamy debacle was an internal affair, one that turned some supporters into dissenters and ended up with an opposition paper being published in Nauvoo that was going to blow the lid off the whole project in June 1844. And it was the decision of Nauvoo leaders to destroy the press that printed the Nauvoo Expositor and suppress the paper that led to the charges and arrests that brought Joseph and Hyrum to Carthage. Here is Park’s summary of the paper:
The first and only issue of the dissenters’ newspaper, the Nauvoo Expositor, appeared on June 7, 1844. … It was time, the paper claimed, for a reformation within the city. Their accusations were both sweeping and meticulously detailed. They accused Smith of claiming plural wives and teaching that there were innumerable Gods. They denounced the city’s use of habeas corpus, which had shielded not only Joseph Smith, but also his friends, like Jeremiah Smith. The prophet was accused of making unholy alliances with politicians, explicitly directing the Mormon vote, and merging religious and civic spheres. (p. 227)
Which brings us to the other big problem: politics. Park does an excellent job of noting and explaining the ongoing political challenge the Saints as a body and Joseph Smith in particular faced. On the one hand, citizens in Nauvoo and the Mormons as a group had every right to vote as they pleased and to vote for candidates who promised support of one form or another to Nauvoo and to the Mormons. That’s what democratic politics is all about, and everyone else in Illinois did it as well. And for the first few years in Nauvoo, it worked. But as the Mormon population swelled and the Mormon vote became significant in state elections, it got tougher and tougher to walk some sort of middle path between Whigs and Democrats or to avoid upsetting one or the other of the parties. In the end, both were upset with the Mormons and political support for Nauvoo evaporated.
Here is Park’s description of the tough spot the Mormons were in regarding the August 8, 1843 election.
On the one hand, Cyrus Walker, the Whig, had not only been a personal friend for several years, but he had been instrumental in keeping Smith out of Missouri. On the other hand, Joseph Hoge represented a Democratic establishment that supported Nauvoo’s rights and charter. For whom could the saints vote? Smith genuinely struggled with the situation. He hedged during a July 4 oration, coyly proclaiming that he never influenced how his followers voted. Onlookers, of course, knew otherwise, and they were keen to receive a signal from him.
In the event, Smith tried to appease both sides and ended up satisfying neither. (p. 158)
Unlike polygamy, the political problem was at least partly external. Of course, the decision, after things fell apart in Missouri (what was where they went after things fell apart in Ohio) to once again gather together as a body in Illinois rather than to disperse in smaller groups and families in several states had, as a necessary eventual consequence, these kind of political issues. And the practice of voting as a block for this or that candidate exacerbated the tricky political position of the Mormons. So the Mormons were responsible at least in part for the political situation they faced.
But Park’s various comments in the text as he recounts the political events that unfolded in the 1840s between Nauvoo and the state make it fairly clear that serious conflict was almost inevitable. Joseph’s death in June 1844 did not solve the problem. Had Joseph not died in Carthage, there would still have been conflict. It wasn’t a matter of this or that official or someone’s personality or some particular event. It was simply a political situation that, given the realities of the law and politics and society in America in the 1840s, had no simple solution. Rock, meet hard place. It was a dead end. The story ends, of course, with the Mormons leaving (or trying to leave) the United States and ending up in the Salt Lake Valley. But if they hadn’t left, an equally tragic end would have come to Nauvoo.
So let’s wind this up. Yes, you should get a copy and read it. You can probably still get your copy as part of the Dialogue Book Club if you ask nicely. The book is short enough you will actually read it. It is deep enough that you’ll learn something new, even if you are familiar with the story of Nauvoo.
Wheat & Tares 
Nauvoo filled me with awe and emptiness as we first visited in 2018. I could not imagine having to abandon a home, not because of disaster, but my choice of religion. I an grateful that the Church continues to rebuild/restore the city.
Does the book suggest that polygamy started in Nauvoo? That wouldn’t be correct. There was enough speculation about it in 1835 to warrant a comment in the Article on Marriage submitted to the Doctrine and Covenants.
Thanks for the review. I have a copy, but have not yet cracked the cover. I am “blessed” to have a job that is keeping me VERY busy and I really want to read it.
I did read Flanders “NAUVOO Kingdom on the Mississippi” and found it to be interesting, but the edition I had was printed in the 70’s, but earlier additions I think were written even in the 60’s. A lot of history has changed since then (yes, that is sarcasm).
I am looking forward to reading it.
I am sure Ben Park is familiar with kirtland’s polygamy history and Fanny Alger.
While Park likely is familiar with Kirtland’s polygamy history and Fanny Alger, he conveys the impression that polygamy began in Nauvoo. In other places, he let’s Joseph off too easy. For example, he underscores the saints’ flight from Kirtland but neglects to mention the catalyst: the failure of Smith’s ill-advised “anti-bank” scheme.
And in one place in the book, after describing a promise Joseph made to Emma not to take on any additional plural wives for six months, he writes: “He was true to his word, except on one occasion.” Try that excuse when your wife discovers you’ve been unfaithful! (By the way, I’m not sure I got the quote exactly right since I don’t have book in front of me right now, but I’m confident I captured its spirit.)
Joseph was repeatedly warned—by both insiders and outsiders— about the risks he was taking when he directed the Saints to vote as a bloc. This contributed significantly to their problems in Missouri, and yet he persisted in Illinois. Yes, frontier justice was often no justice at all, and the persecution of the saints was both illegal and immoral, but when you are fully cognizant of this reality, you must modify your behavior accordingly. You don’t go creating the largest militia in the state and then assume the rank of lieutenant general. Other religious minorities understood this and found ways to co-exist with their neighbors.
At times, during his final years, Joseph seemed to suffer from delusions of grandeur. He ran for the office of President of the United States and, at times, thought he actually might win. But this mindset found its largest expression in the Council of Fifty, a body he organized for purposes of eventually supplanting the government of the United States with a quasi-theocracy. Indeed, Joseph was so concerned that this body’s activities would be viewed as treasonous that he ordered the burning of its minutes before he was taken to Carthage. Thankfully, that order was disobeyed. This, by the way, is the most fascinating part of Park’s book and reason alone to buy it.
All of this notwithstanding, I still believe Joseph was a prophet. I also believe he had to die to young. Had he not, it would likely have become the “Church of Joseph Smith” and fizzled once he departed. This is not a criticism of the man; rather, it as an acknowledgment of what frequently happens with utopian societies and new religions when the aged founder passes away. His acolytes, having become so dependent upon him, are cast adrift when he is gone.
Hi Eric: thanks for the engagement on the book. I hope you’ll find that my book agrees with much of what you say here.
On Fanny Alger, I admit in the book that I am agnostic on what happened, as I haven’t studied it in depth like I have Nauvoo. What I am comfortable in saying is that whatever took place was substantially different than the plural sealings that started taking place in April 1841, in large part because the theological structure was not in place earlier. Whether that means Fanny Alger was an affair, a more primitive version of polygamy based more in biblical restorationism, or something else entirely, I didn’t want to wade into. That’s outside my story.
Similarly, I didn’t dig into the Kirtland Bank fiasco because I chose, based on space limitations, to focus on Missouri as the backstory. And I’d like to believe I amply play up how Smith and other Mormons were quite culpable in that crisis.
I take your criticism about the “exception” phrase regarding Emma. Dealing with those marriage dynamics are difficult. I do believe, though, that the entirety of the book, and indeed the whole section in chapter 4 from which that quote comes, gives a much bigger picture, including Joseph Smith’s duplicitous actions leading up to and following that short detante. For example, I give a lot of coverage–more than previous historians, I’d wager–to a later blowup between Joseph and Emma that winter, which resulted in Emma denouncing polygamy in her most expansive terms up to that point.
And I agree with the inherent and warned risks regarding JS’s political and military activities, as I tried to outline in KoN.
It’s impossible to write about these episodes in a way that satisfy everyone. And there’s no doubt that I made many mistakes in my attempt at a fair overview. (Indeed, “fair” is far from an objective term.) Therefore, this pushback is always welcome.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Mark, Park didn’t spend much time on what might have preceded Nauvoo polygamy: “Whether Smith’s marriage to Beman originated the Mormon practice of polygamy, we cannot know. Rumors had followed the church ever since it was founded in 1830” (p. 62). Some LDS authors spend a lot of time explaining and defending polygamy, but there is little in terms of reliable, contemporaneous records and there are a wide variety of explanations offered for the practice, even by those early participants. So all the “explanations” we hear now are largely speculative. What is undeniable is Joseph’s expansion of the practice in Nauvoo.
Eric, here is the passage in the book where Emma’s response to Joseph is summarized: “A month later [after section 132 was delivered to an unhappy Emma], Emma threatened Joseph with a divorce. In an attempt to mollify her concerns and assure her protection, Joseph signed over sixty lots in Nauvoo to his wife and their children …. Yet Emma did not back down at all until Joseph promised not to take any more plural wives that fall. With one exception, he remained true to his word” (p. 153-54).
Thanks, Dave. Nice to know I wasn’t too far off the mark. And more importantly, thanks for the thorough review. This is a work of Mormon history that I hope reaches a wide audience, and I’m glad you brought it to the attention of others.
I didn’t read “With one exception, he remained true to his word.” as letting Joseph off easily. Instead, it struck me as a roll-of-the-eyes kind of way of saying he did not keep his promise and actually emphasizing that fact. Maybe in the context and style of the book as a whole, it would strike me differently.
Benjamin, forgive me but I overlooked your comment.
Thanks for contributing to the discussion of your book and for your response to some of the points I made, all of which were enlightening.
As I said to Dave, your tome constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of the Nauvoo period and is one of the most important—and fascinating—works of Mormon history to appear in several years. I live in the D.C. area and was hoping your book tour might bring you to our nation’s capital. Alas, this pesky virus put an end to those aspirations. In any event, I trust you are not resting on your laurels and are using your quarantine time to start work on your next big project. 🙂