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S2E15 · American Ideology Part 1
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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 15 · 47:29

American Ideology Part 1

Many of the Americans who drove out the Latter-day Saints truly believed they were defending the American way.

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The question ·
I'm curious about the book that Elder Oaks wrote back in the 80s. How much can that book be trusted? I know Elder Oaks is an apostle, but he wrote this book prior to his calling. I know he researched the court records, but can anyone gain access to that information to verify his work?
Scott (listener)

Richard reads Scott's question about Carthage Conspiracy, the book Dallin H. Oaks wrote with Marvin Hill, and Gerrit explains why a university press and peer review matter, and why the book still holds up. Using a "hypothetical" fender bender from Richard's family vacation and the lost 116 pages, Gerrit shows how a single new source can change the whole story. Then the hosts turn to a new series on American ideology: how persecutors of the Saints saw themselves as upholding American ideals. Gerrit traces religious freedom in the colonies, from the Puritans and Roger Williams to Virginia, New Amsterdam and the Quakers, and points ahead to plural marriage and next week's Boston Tea Party.

Who comes upDallin H. OaksMarvin HillEmma SmithMartin HarrisRichard BushmanRoger WilliamsJohn AdamsThomas JeffersonJoseph Smith
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The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church and grow it by way of visions, manifestations and miracles.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard In this podcast, we want to start with an email that we received from a listener. Dr. Dirkmaat, I'm curious about the book that Elder Oaks wrote back in the 80s. How much can that book be trusted? I know Elder Oaks is an apostle, but he wrote this book prior to his calling. I know he researched the court records, but can anyone gain access to that information to verify his work? Thanks Scott. First, Scott, thanks for not mentioning me. I really appreciate that. Gerrit, your answer.
Gerrit You seem to have touched a nerve.
Richard No, no, no, no.
Gerrit If everyone would email in the future addressing only Richard, I think that would help.
Richard That's all that I'm asking.
Gerrit All that you're asking?
Richard I'm contributing almost nothing to this podcast. The least they can do is address all emails to me.
Gerrit But with the title Professor.
Richard Oh, absolutely. Put some respect on that.
Gerrit I mean, are you going to tell them that you're just an adjunct professor?
Richard I don't think that's important.
Gerrit Yeah. Well, I think I just did. That's right. Yeah. That's a good question. And you know, it relates to that book relates to multiple of the topics that we've covered, both the martyrdom as well as some of the the actions of the Latter-day Saints after Joseph's murder. The book, it's written in 1975, Carthage Conspiracy. And not only is it is it written by a brilliant legalist scholar, which is Elder Oaks obviously is and was then. He partners with a historian, Marvin Hill, who is a professor in the history department at BYU in order to write the book. It is something that is published by a university press. So it's published by the University of Illinois Press. And in when you're looking at academic work, when it's related to history, kind of the the gold standard, so to speak, is if things are published by academic presses and by what we mean by that is a university academic press usually.
Gerrit So there's a big difference between a book that's published by Cambridge University Press and one that's published, self-published on Amazon. Now, the one that's self-published on Amazon might have the greatest historical insights ever in it. But no one else who was up here vetted it to say that it did. And so that's part of the first stop you go to when you say is this book credible? Now, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that every single university press book that's ever been published is outstanding and all the stuff in it is accurate and great. The reality is there are times I've reviewed multiple books in my career and articles, and there I've had multiple times where I have said things to the effect of this is not good scholarship. It isn't using the sources that are available.
Gerrit It's not following the standards of historical argument. It should not be published. And then five months later, there's the same book that is then published. And so it's not a foolproof scheme. Peer review does not prevent wrong or bad arguments from being published. But it's a lot better than what the alternative is. And that is, I just uploaded this meme to Facebook. What do you think? I mean, the reality is some attempted oversight is at least better than no oversight at all. So it's important to know that while Marvin Hill and Elder Oaks are obviously members of the church, their book was published by a non-Latter-day Saints academic university press. And so that's some insight into how that book is received by scholars.
Gerrit To your more particular point and question of whether or not you could go replicate this, is this a good book? First of all, for the longest time, it has been and still serves as the standard book that people turn to when they're covering the trial surrounding the assassins of Joseph Smith. It was written a long time ago, half a century is a long time, in the historical world especially. And so are there aspects of that book that are not fully accurate today? Sure, because in the intervening 50 years that have happened, I mean, not quite 50 years, but close, I mean, you know, 47 years since it was published, we have discovered many more documents, many more personal writings of people involved in the trials, many more, you know, legal documents that we knew existed, but we couldn't find at the time.
Gerrit So that's always one of the issues when you're dealing with historical writing, is books that might be very accurate at the time will sometimes be still be really good, but a little bit less accurate as more sources come up. An example of why having more than one source for an event matters and how it might change over time, is Richard, your son calls you up and says, Dad, I wrecked the car. What happened?
Richard This is a hypothetical? Or this literally happened while we were on vacation together.
Gerrit We may have been on vacation together, actually, while we were recording podcasts.
Richard Yeah, that's right.
Gerrit It was early on in our podcasting days. Oh, the Halcyon days. Oh, these were the days, never to be forgotten. When we were in St. Thomas with a very noisy room with terrible microphones recording on, I think it was on the martyrdom.
Richard It might have been actually.
Gerrit I think it was. As we were leaving, Richard had a conversation with one of his as yet to be unnamed children.
Richard It was Rigdon.
Gerrit Well, now other people will know.
Richard Yeah, I want them to know. Here's the thing. As a quick insight, so we're leaving. We're violating all kinds of laws as we leave our 17-year-old in charge. We've got family and friends that are checking in on them, and as soon as this is released, then our children take it away from us.
Gerrit Anyone who's working for Job Protective Services needs to talk to them. But just what I was wondering, my kids were with their grandma, so we were responsible.
Richard Yes, yes. And it was pretty simple. We were having food delivered to them with Uber Eats or DoorDash or whatever. My wife went to Costco and bought all of the food, all of the things that they had. And we said, just stay home. Don't go anywhere. Don't drive anywhere. Don't do anything.
Gerrit How long had he had his license?
Richard Just got his license. And we got to St. Thomas.
Gerrit It was literally the day we got there.
Richard It was within two hours of us checking in.
Gerrit We were driving to go find our first meal.
Richard No, we weren't. We were back at the Airbnb. I got a call that he got into a fender bender.
Gerrit In a car, he was not supposed to be in at all.
Richard He wasn't supposed to be doing anything. And I was obviously stunned. How could you possibly, in a fender bender at home, not drive in it?
Gerrit It's very difficult to get in a car accident outside of being in a car.
Richard Again, this is a hypothetical.
Gerrit Hypothetical.
Richard That's right.
Gerrit Right. So you find out that a, you find out, you hear the story. Now, this is all hypothetical here.
Richard None of that's true. It's all hypothetical.
Gerrit But you get one report of what, of what happened. This is what happened in Richard's case. But let's say, you know, your teenager gets in a car wreck and they, you know, what happened? And they tell you, I was driving down the road and this other person's car pulled right out in front of me and there was no way to stop in time. And so I hit him. So your reaction to that from on the information that you have is going to be, you know, it's going to be very different. You're going to say, oh my goodness, I can't believe that person pulled out in front of you. And I'm sure you also check to see if they're okay. To Richard's credit, the very first thing he did ask his son is if he was okay.
Richard Yes, I hypothetically asked if he was okay. And then I also hypothetically asked if he's going to enjoy the next nine years not seeing his friends.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Hypothetically.
Gerrit Right. Hypothetically. But anyway, in our scenario, things change pretty quickly if you get another source, right? So if the only source we ever had on this description of this traffic accident was the teenager reporting back to their parents, a car pulled out in front of me and I hit them. Well, then what else are you going to go on? That's the only source you have. And then you get the police report and find out that the car that pulled out in front of them was in fact a parked car on the side of the road, making it much harder for the car to have pulled out in front of them, right? So it changes your opinion of what happened in those events. History is like that constantly, where we may not have very many sources for a thing, and we have one source and it's not very good. So I guess we'll go with that until we find something else out more.
Gerrit I mean, a great example of this is we, we don't know how much Emma Smith served as a scribe for the early translation portion of the Book of Mormon. We don't have the 116 pages or if you happen to have the 116 pages, please email us here at the podcast. So we can't actually look. So how would I find out? The easiest way for me to find out, the most certain way for me to find out, is I would look at the handwriting in the pages, right? And oh, there's Emma's handwriting, there's Martin Harris' handwriting, there's Reuben Hale's handwriting, right? Why don't I have any of the pages? I don't have any of the pages because they were stolen. Martin Harris later in his life will make a reference to the fact that Emma wrote more than he did on that early translation portion. It's a very late reference, and he is someone who would know, but it's the only reference we have, right?
Richard Sounds like, by the way, if I was Martin Harris, I would also say the same thing. I would say, hey, you know, Emma did way more work than me just because, you know, she might still be mad at me for losing them or getting them stolen in the first place.
Gerrit Yeah, exactly.
Richard Emma's the best.
Gerrit That was all I meant. That's funny. If you were Martin Harris, you're trying to cover it up a little bit. I didn't even work on that at all. What do you mean the 116 pages? That's not in the Book of Mormon. But what if we were to find a source where they talk about, you know, where earlier either Emma or Martin talks about how much that would change our understanding of those events. So whenever you're doing history, you always have to be open to the fact that new sources might change the way that we interpret what it is we think about those events. So in that regard, look, 50 years of written history has passed since the book Carthage Conspiracy was published. It's still a very good book. It's still a source that scholars like myself use all the time when they are covering the periods of the events that happen surrounding the trial of the assassins of Joseph Smith.
Gerrit But as any historian will tell you, over the course of time, as new things are discovered, one of the things you wish you could do is grab your manuscript back and change it. I told Richard he's working on his dissertation now for his business degree, and I don't know what it's like in business, because I assume that you only know that you've arrived when you've conquered several small corporations.
Richard That's correct.
Gerrit How many people have I laid off? That's how I know that my PhD is working.
Richard The importance of business is destroying people's lives. That's the main part.
Gerrit Yeah, exactly. So he won't really feel like he's arrived until lots of them have lost their jobs. But at least for me, I mean, you know, I spent a lot of time on my dissertation, but one of the sources I really needed for my dissertation was not a public source. It was the Council of 50 Minutes, because it was talking all about the Latter-day Saints leaving the United States. I knew the Council of 50 Minutes existed, but I didn't have access to them at all. No one had access to them. So I had to write my dissertation without them. And I'd be the first person to tell you, had I those minutes, I would have re-wrote what I wrote my dissertation at. Now, some of the conclusions I made would still be the same, but the way I made the arguments would be very different.
Richard So two things. First, it sounds like your understanding of business comes from every 80s movie about Wall Street and the villains around Wall Street. Number one. Number two. So kind of an example might be Richard Bushman and his book, Rough Stone Rolling.
Gerrit Yeah, Rough Stone Rolling is a great, I mean, is by far the best biography of Joseph Smith that we have as far as being an academic biography, a comprehensive one. It's a massive book with very small print. If you haven't read it, it's gigantic. But that was also written a couple of decades ago. And in the interim, in that time, the Joseph Smith Papers Project has published their several dozen volumes of, well, two dozen volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers and examine each of the documents underlying Joseph's life on a very minute detail. So it's important you don't kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to examining books that are written about history. His book has amazing great points. It was a massive undertaking that will be very difficult for people to replicate at any time in the future.
Gerrit At some point, someone will, but it will be tough to do a better job than he did with it. But he also didn't have access to all of the sources that would be discovered when the Joseph Smith Papers began doing their archival research. A great example of this is you've heard me talk about the article that Jonathan Hadley wrote when we were talking about the translation of the Book of Mormon. Also, we talked about it when we were talking about early anti-Mormon reactions to Joseph Smith. He's the one who said that Joseph Smith was very illiterate, essentially, that no one was going to listen to this. But it was a great source for early explanation of how both the angel appeared, how Joseph translated the Book of Mormon. Well, that source wasn't discovered when Ruff Stone Rowling was written. So someone might come along later and say, well, how come he didn't use Jonathan Hadley's source?
Gerrit Because it wasn't discovered. So it makes it very easy. It wasn't used because they didn't know it existed, right? And I'm not saying that people are critical of his book because of that. But what I'm saying is someone might erroneously be critical of this work from the past because it doesn't include something that was discovered later. In this case, this book, Carthage Conspiracy, is obviously an older book, but a very good, solidly written book. At the same time, someone needs to understand that over the course of time, other things may have been discovered. And that's just how it is when you are engaging in history. When you engage in history, you have to be willing to understand that other sources, other arguments might change what it is that you're talking about. I think now this was more boring than Townships.
Richard Boy, it's close.
Gerrit It is close. And if it hasn't gotten there yet, if we had a room full of people, everyone in the room would be asleep right now.
Richard Hypothetically.
Gerrit Hypothetically, yeah, speaking.
Richard So speaking of really boring, we did a three-parter on Abraham Lincoln, his connection to the church. And first of all, we are certainly very grateful for all of our listeners from Rachel's mom to Gina in Vermont. And I think that's the list, both of them.
Gerrit Yeah, well, my mom still listens, although she's pretty upset lately. Well, because we're making her move.
Richard That's true.
Gerrit We're not making her move, but she's going to move down to be around us. Yeah, it's great. But moving is one of those things that if anyone has ever moved can tell you sounds good until you do any part of it.
Richard Yeah, it's like a red-eye flight. Hey, you know, if we fly it in a minute.
Gerrit Well, we could get there in the morning and have the whole day. We'd be able to party all day. And then sometime around 10 a.m. you're laying in a gutter somewhere.
Richard So speaking of laying in a gutter somewhere, the three-parter on Lincoln, we certainly appreciate everyone that listened to that, but we received the most feedback via email on that of anything else. Almost, I was going to say triple the email. So we received one email. We received a lot of emails.
Gerrit For a business guy, he doesn't understand that zero times one is still zero, but...
Richard Well, in accounting, you get creative. So the thing is that we received a lot of feedback on that. And so it was interesting because there were a couple of emails specifically talking about this idea of religious freedom and the disconnect between our understanding of religious freedom and what happened to the Saints. I know that you've received lots of emails on that. I know that your students struggle with that every year.
Gerrit And so we decided that we would, since people seem to like these American history asides, we would talk about the Latter-day Saints' view of themselves in this American ideological tradition. And how is it possible that the people who are persecuting them can see themselves as actually upholding the American tradition and the American way?
Richard So what is some of the response from the students when they hear about what happened to them in Missouri?
Gerrit There's a shock. I mean, we haven't done it yet, but soon, and this is...
Richard This one we will do. We say we'll do it, we have no intention of ever doing it. We have a good friend, Brady, he always says, when are you getting to those things that you said, oh, we have no intention of ever doing it?
Gerrit As I said, we will do plural marriage sometime in our 17th episode.
Richard Yeah, we'll do plural marriage the same way that God told Joseph when the Second Coming would be.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah. If you live to your 82nd year, let that be enough. So if we're in our 17th season, and, you know, it's just me and Gina from Vermont at this point, because Richard's long gone, maybe we'll do that. But we do need to do the one on Missouri and its violence. And when I say the one, I mean, that's really going to be like a, it's going to be like a five parter, just because Missouri is a long running issue. So we'll get more into the specifics of that, but maybe it would be a good thing to kind of lay some groundwork on American history generally and how the Latter-day Saints see themselves vis-a-vis American history and why it is that people who are otherwise freedom loving Americans believe that they are actually being patriotic when they burn a widow's house down in Missouri, when they shoot and kill someone like Edmund Durfee, and demand that the Mormons leave Nauvoo or Jackson County or Caldwell County, or I could keep on going because there's a lot of counties, Davies County, Ray County, just essentially anywhere we've ever lived, why they think they can do that and still be upholding the American way of life.
Gerrit And so I get shock from my students. I often have students say things like, I can't believe that something like this happened in America. Often they haven't read a lot of other American history, I'm guessing, but still.
Richard So to that point, I think that if you were to talk to Native Americans, if you were to talk to African Americans, they wouldn't be as surprised.
Gerrit I think that part of being stunned at the treatment of Latter-day Saints by your average Latter-day Saint in America certainly comes from that place. They have an idealized view of American history that, you know, sure, there were some, a couple places where things broke down and weren't the way we wanted them to be, but by and large, it was religious freedom, it was toleration, America, you know, was always on the right side of things. And like you said, there are other, you know, minority groups in America that have been treated terribly, both by the government and by the citizens of the United States who wouldn't be that surprised. I mean, if you were to try to explain how crazy it is that mobocratic forces would be allowed to violently steal land from people who legally owned it, you're right that many of your American Indian friends would say, really, you don't say.
Gerrit So you can't believe that someone would want the land you're on and then kill you and take it from you. It's very, I mean, the reality is for many, many, you know, my American students, that's just not what they've studied in American history. So they know that things happened in the past. They get that. They know that, oh, yes, there were some bad things, but they generally think of those things as being very much the exception rather than the rule.
Richard But the reality, though, is, as you've explained over and over again, is that history is messy and you can have these circumstances that are horrific, and yet the Constitution is still inspired of God, that there is still aspects of these things that people hold, ideals that don't necessarily are tossed out.
Gerrit I mean, how do you reconcile things even when it comes to actions that have happened in church history? I mean, is Joseph Smith still the prophet even though he invested in and supported and thought that the Kirtland Safety Society was a great idea? Right? Now, there were people at the time...
Richard Yeah, that said no.
Gerrit That said absolutely not. God should have told him that it was going to fail. But there's a lot of times that God doesn't intervene. I mean, probably that most poignant one is there in the Book of Mormon, right? When they're casting the believers into the fire. And Alvin Amulek asks, should we put forth our hands and stop them from doing this? And they don't. I mean, that's a poignant scene that's burned into my memory from reading the Book of Mormon. The reality is we don't always know why it is that God intervenes at times and then doesn't at others. And sometimes when we are the ones setting the terms of, well, I know that God wouldn't do X, or God wouldn't allow X to happen. It's really what people have to confront over and over again in world history.
Gerrit Whenever incredibly tragic and horrific things happen to good people, otherwise innocent people, how do we deal with it? And we talked a little bit about that in one of our earlier podcasts about agency and about suffering. But the reality is history, as you said, it is messy. It is not easy. In fact, almost anything you can say about a historical event has some kind of caveat. Oh, yes, this always happened, except when it didn't happen. Now, the exception doesn't mean that it didn't, that it never happened the other way. But it doesn't mean that it didn't happen either, right? The reality is that the history is messy. So what you have in Missouri by the time the Saints, and we will, yes, at some point we'll do Missouri. We'll talk all about the Saints being driven out of there and what was driving that.
Gerrit But you have people who very much believe that in their violent rhetoric against the Latter-day Saints, they are upholding American values. I think a lot of times we assume or we think of, well, I hear it all the time, you know, America was established, the whole reason the colonists came here was for religious freedom. You know, the colonists came here for religious freedom, right? And that requires some nuance too, because there were lots of colonies, you know, you know, 13 actually to be exact. And not every colony was established for the same reason. It's true that when you're talking about the Massachusetts Bay colony and the Puritans who are fleeing, you know, their oppression from the Church of England in England, that they come to Massachusetts for a dual purpose. I mean, they have a company, they have a joint stock company, they are planning to try to make money while they're there.
Gerrit But the real purpose of why they're going is we weren't able to practice our religion the way we wanted to in England. We were being persecuted. The Puritans are, you know, uber Calvinists as far as, and they don't think that the Church of England has gone far enough in ridding itself from its Catholic overtones. And so they're being persecuted for not following the Church of England the way they should. And there are Puritans who were executed in England for speaking out against what was then the state church. So the point of going to Massachusetts is for them to be able to practice their religion the way they wanted to, which is not the same thing as freedom of religion. We're not talking about people who got off the boat saying we've got to make sure that every Catholic or Muslim who comes here has a mosque and a cathedral. I mean, that's not their intent. What they want to do is they want to go somewhere where they are allowed to practice their religion and in fact to the exclusion of others, because they see themselves as having a covenant with God.
Gerrit They see themselves as a city set up on the hill and that that city is God's only going to bless them if they don't allow the sinners into their midst. The point behind excluding someone from the community isn't just because they committed adultery and we're going to put a scar. The point is if we don't keep our community pure, then God is going to smite us. So we have to keep it pure, just like the children of Israel did.
Richard So as an example, they want religious freedom, just not for Roger Williams.
Gerrit Right. Roger Williams is questioning the existing religious church structure, and so he's essentially driven out of the colony. And Hutchinson similarly is going to be, you know, driven out of the colony. This is not the point of the establishment of the Puritan colonies at Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay is not so that we can establish a land where everyone can worship God, however they want to worship God. Their criticism of the Church of England was that the Church of England was not following more closely what it was that God clearly wanted them to do, such as eliminating all vestiges of Catholicism from the worship service. So their big gripe is you aren't radical enough for what God expects us to be.
Gerrit But they're not the only colony. So in Virginia, which is the other, obviously the earliest colony, you have really a different kind of pattern of settlement. Here, the Virginia Company is, again, they're trying to make money. The point of the establishment of this colony is to make money. They established themselves on the Chesapeake Bay thinking that they are going to be able to monopolize a trade route. They're very centrally located. Maybe if you go far enough up the Chesapeake Bay, it might lead to a northwest passage. What's interesting is as late as the 16 and 1700s, people are still looking for a way to get through North America, not to come to it. North America is essentially a speed bump on the way to China, which maybe it is today.
Gerrit The world comes around. But North America is in the way because the real trade routes, you still want to get to India and to the Spice Islands and to get to Japan and to get to China, and you have this continent that's in the way. But people believe there's so many waterways, especially in the eastern half of North America, certainly some of these waterways and lakes actually lead to that great ocean on the other side. And so part of the idea of the settlement of the Virginia Company is when that northwest passage is found, we will be like the supply depot for people going to China and to other places in the east for spices. But the Virginia Company and the settlers in Jamestown are not going there for religious purposes.
Gerrit Now that's not to say that they're not religious. I'm not saying that they didn't have religion. I'm saying that's not what motivated them to go. Capitalism is what's motivating them to go. The idea of gaining money and wealth off of this new land and also the idea of owning property, which they couldn't really own in England. So there's these cultural ideas that are driving this. But they are not going to Virginia because they just can't practice their religion the way they want to in England because of the Church of England. Because in Virginia, they're all members of the Church of England. So they're trying to replicate what's back in England. They're not trying to create something new. So you really have these kind of two dichotomies, right? These two earliest colonies, Virginia first and then Massachusetts. One has commerce as a secondary goal, but religion as their primary goal. Virginia has commerce as its very much primary goal.
Gerrit And then, oh, also, by the way, we're religious. So you'll notice that commerce, capitalism, business, is actually a part of both of those foundings. And that religion is a part of both of those foundings, but to different and lesser extents.
Richard You've mentioned to me before when you're reading something about the founding fathers and they mention religion, you know that they're going to talk about...
Gerrit John Adams. Always John Adams.
Richard And if they're going to say about how non-religious the founding fathers are...
Gerrit Well, they don't ever say that. I mean, whoever writes a book talking about them not being... What will happen, though, is they'll say, the founding fathers believed in having an absolutely limited government and not having any power at all. You already know when they say that, that for sure the next page is going to be Thomas Jefferson. Or, I mean, perhaps Patrick Henry, or even Samuel Adams, maybe. But we tend to see in the founding fathers what we want to see in them. So when we say things like, well, you know, the founding fathers, they were all really religious. Well, of course they're religious, and certainly more religious than people in our world are. But there's a reason why people always use John Adams as the example, because John Adams is really religious and is constantly talking about doing things on the basis of God, because he's coming out of that Massachusetts tradition and culture that Americans are required to do what God wants them to do.
Gerrit So, yeah, you always have to kind of recognize that for every John Adams who's super religious, there's also a Thomas Paine who is an atheist, actually, or at the very least, a super agnostic. He's the one who wrote the pamphlet Common Sense, which motivates people towards independence when they're in that period of not knowing whether or not they're going to push for all the way for independence. But he is not advocating for independence because of religious freedom. He doesn't believe in religion at all. I'm sure he thinks people should be able to worship however they want, but they shouldn't because you shouldn't. So these American ideals are often in conflict and they have long histories. Religious freedom isn't just me worshiping God however I want.
Gerrit The most important aspect of religious freedom is that the person who disagrees with me is able to worship God however they want. And the ideals that come out of the American Revolution are kind of like the fuel that will eventually get us to a land that is more pluralistic in religious belief, in believing that you don't have to believe what I believe. Now the diversity of religion in the American colonies is already well beyond what it is anywhere else in the world. I mean, the Netherlands is actually a pretty diverse religious place. There's a pretty good amount of religious toleration there. And so these, you know, ergo the Dutch colonies, I'm just saying this because I'm Dutch, by the way.
Richard 100%.
Gerrit No part of this is probably even true. But New Amsterdam, which will become New York, has many different religious groups, and there's no real attempt to enforce, much to the chagrin of the Dutch Reform Church's leaders there, there's no real attempt to enforce those religious beliefs. But still, most of these colonies have, they have their own religious practices that are set up, you know, probably the best example of early toleration is going to come from Pennsylvania, where Quakers are going to establish, you know, Pennsylvania as this refuge for Quakers. Quakers are seen as this radical group, again, outside of the box thinkers when it comes to the Church of England. The reason why they're hated a great deal is that they think that it's wrong to give allegiance to any earthly governments.
Gerrit There are also often pacifists who believe that it's wrong to serve in the military at times. So, as you might imagine, if you're a king and your primary thing you care about your subjects for is that you can use them to fight wars for you, well, Quakerism is not your favorite religion with its pacifist tendencies. So, but in Pennsylvania, there is some limited amount of religious freedom, even then nothing like what we would see today. The, it's important to understand that America is very ideological in its founding, meaning that it was established along the basis of ideas and ideals. And the Latter Day Saints, early Latter Day Saints, are all recipients of those ideals all throughout their lives.
Gerrit Most of them are Americans. And even as you get an influx of Latter Day Saints that are coming from England later, they are still going to have some of these same traditional English ideals of the rights and freedom of individuals to own property and to worship as they please. The problem is that is going to butt up against the very real world problems of what happens when you're a religious minority in a place that's controlled by a majority that hates you. It's going to happen for the Colesville Saints in New York. It's going to happen for the Latter Day Saints in Kirtland. It's going to happen for the Latter Day Saints in Missouri several times where they are going to be driven out because they're this hated minority. And it's going to happen in Nauvoo and in Iowa.
Gerrit And there's going to be a perpetuation of that into the Utah period. Latter Day Saints are going to be arguing that they have a right to practice plural marriage because it's part of their religion. And here the federal government and state governments, of course, are going to say religious freedom has its limits. You don't have the right to do X because of your religion. Now, this is where that kind of rubber meets the road. In fact, when the Supreme Court took up cases on plural marriage, one of the arguments that is made by one of the judges, Supreme Court judges siding with these laws, is polygamy is evil. And anyone, you know, it's just evil.
Gerrit And because it's evil, it doesn't matter if it's someone's religious belief. And then to try to make a complete and total, you know, apples to oranges comparison, he goes on to say something to the effect of that, you know, we wouldn't allow someone who killed and sacrificed someone to their gods to say that they were just practicing their religion. Well, okay, to a certain degree, I think most people agree there are limits to someone's individual practice of religion. But really those limits, the reason why it's an apples to oranges comparison is that if I'm going and I'm killing someone and sacrificing them to my god, they might not be a willing participant in that affair, right? Well, what happens when someone is a willing participant? The fact that so many believers among early Latter-day Saints, one of the ways that they are derided is that they are duped, that they are delusional, that they have a frenzied mind, that they can't possibly be in their right mind.
Gerrit All of these things are ways of getting around the real actual problem. And that is, how can a rational, intelligent person believe this? They have to have been tricked. They have to have been fooled. This has to be because they see Mormonism so-called so in such negative light. So we're going to intermingle a little bit of American history here as we talk about some of the founding ideals of the country as a way of helping our listeners understand. They're all asleep now. I mean, literally only Gina and Rachel's mom are listening. My mom stopped listening.
Richard Well, she was never able to get it downloaded.
Gerrit No, she's still trying to download it now. I'm pretty sure that your wife's dad's not listening. I don't know if he's downloaded this or not, but I'm pretty sure he's not listening.
Richard But at this point, I don't blame him.
Gerrit Yeah, this was pretty boring.
Richard Yeah, absolutely.
Gerrit I think though that if you were looking for scintillating conversation, you were already downloading a true crime podcast. So what are you doing here?
Richard I want something to be on the edge of my seat. What about a Latter-day Saint history podcast?
Gerrit I need to stay awake while I drive 18 hours to Florida. What if, I know, let's listen to a history podcast. You're the one making the bad decision here.
Richard This is on you.
Gerrit I didn't charge anyone for this. Three minutes in, you should have been like, this isn't for me. And then you're out, you know. So anyway, what we want to talk about on our next podcast is we're going to talk a little bit about the history of ideology in America. And we're going to use the Boston Tea Party as an example of how this event in American history is often referenced even today in American history, but often for the wrong reasons. But it's the ideological underpinning that causes Americans to act the way that they do, both Latter-day Saints claiming that they should have access to the rights and freedom of every other American and also these other Americans who are then taking those rights and freedoms away from them, all the while claiming, I'm just doing what you should be doing in America. So if that isn't a good one.
Richard So just the Boston Tea Party is a teaser, is the funniest thing I've ever heard. Hey, join us next week.
Gerrit When we hold the Boston Tea Party. I'm not asking them to drink tea next week.
Richard Maybe we should. Next week when we talk about the Boston Tea Party, it's a very, so I apologize because it was a very good set up for the next episode. But it's just funny to me using the Boston Tea Party as a teaser is just.
Gerrit Would you prefer we use townships as a teaser?
Richard Well, yeah.
Gerrit Next week, we're going to be talking about townships, townships and more townships. And you can put in your guess as to what the greater metropolitan area of Montpelier, Vermont is, which we all greatly overestimated when we looked that up.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

Quote board

Make a share card from any line

I'm contributing almost nothing to this podcast. The least they can do is address all emails to me.

RichardBanter

Peer review does not prevent wrong or bad arguments from being published. But it's a lot better than what the alternative is. And that is, I just uploaded this meme to Facebook.

GerritInsight

It's very difficult to get in a car accident outside of being in a car.

GerritBanter

Yes, I hypothetically asked if he was okay. And then I also hypothetically asked if he's going to enjoy the next nine years not seeing his friends.

RichardBanter

So whenever you're doing history, you always have to be open to the fact that new sources might change the way that we interpret what it is we think about those events.

GerritInsight

The importance of business is destroying people's lives. That's the main part.

RichardBanter

Well, in accounting, you get creative.

RichardBanter

The most important aspect of religious freedom is that the person who disagrees with me is able to worship God however they want.

GerritInsight

I need to stay awake while I drive 18 hours to Florida. What if, I know, let's listen to a history podcast. You're the one making the bad decision here.

GerritBanter

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Since Carthage Conspiracy is old, or written by an apostle, it can't be trusted.
The colonists all came to America for religious freedom.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

Peer-reviewed university press books aren't perfect, but some oversight is far better than a meme on Facebook.

One new source, like a police report, can change the whole story, so good history stays open to new evidence.

Religious freedom means the person who disagrees with me can worship as they choose, not just that I can.

Many who drove out the Saints believed they were defending American values, which is why the Church's story is part of the bigger, messy American story.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Address emails to Professor LeDucRichard wants all emails addressed to him, with the title Professor; Gerrit outs him as an adjunct (1:11).
The hypothetical fender benderRigdon got in a wreck two hours after his parents checked in to St. Thomas, "hypothetically" (6:29, callback 18:05).
Gerrit's 80s Wall Street view of businessRichard's PhD only works once he's laid enough people off (13:47, callback 14:44).
TownshipsWas this more boring than townships? Close. And the Montpelier metro area teaser (17:57, callback 46:38).
Our listeners: Rachel's mom and Gina in VermontThe full listener list, plus Gerrit's mom, who still can't download it (18:09, callback 44:25).
Episodes promised, never madePlural marriage in the 17th season, and the Missouri five-parter they "will" do (20:40).
I'm Dutch, by the wayGerrit's plug for religiously tolerant New Amsterdam, "no part of this is probably even true" (37:29).
Boston Tea Party, the teaserRichard can't get over a Boston Tea Party cliffhanger (46:15).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Read Carthage Conspiracy and compare it with newer sources on the trial of Joseph Smith's assassins (1:36).
What the Council of Fifty minutes add to the story of the Saints planning to leave the United States (13:55).
Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and why Puritan Massachusetts wasn't built for religious pluralism (30:28).
The Supreme Court's 19th-century plural marriage cases and the limits of religious freedom (41:32).
SOT Litner · S2E15.