Top Villains of the Restoration

Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.

Gerrit Welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend from what appears to be a well in a cavernous room where we are doing another live event. I'm joined by my friend, Richard LeDuc.

Richard Hello, Gerrit. Thanks for having me back.

Gerrit I love how Richard says that, as if there's any other option.

Richard So we're here in the shadow of the everlasting Mississippi River. I don't think that's how that works, but we're in Keokuk, and we are with a tour group here, doing this live in front of them, and we're killing it.

Gerrit We're at the Lake Cooper Foundation.

Richard Lake Cooper Foundation building, 812 Main Street in Keokuk, Iowa.

Gerrit We better not drop this too soon, or people will come looking for us.

Richard So, Gerrit, we received many questions from the Litners here and from the customers here as well. We're going to go through some of these questions. First question. Richard, do you think that the Mavericks are going to cover the three and a half tonight versus the Celtics?

Gerrit Well, is Chris stop playing? Is Porzingis going to play?

Richard I'm going to get our correct research staff on that.

Gerrit I don't know. I think they were saying no, he wasn't going to play.

Richard Oh my gosh.

Gerrit Well, so I mean, and can Kyrie do more than 15 points?

Richard He's been averaging 14 points in the series.

Gerrit Yeah, it's rough.

Richard Anyway, so yeah, I put my money on the Mavericks. Entertainment purposes only. Don't gamble.

Gerrit President Hinckley.

Richard President Hinckley do that in the five April conference.

Gerrit We should let people know that this tour group was blessed with having a tour bus driver who I was casually saying to her like, you know, it's too bad that none of the tour buses will really go down to the Hans Mill Massacre site, to which she scoffed at those drivers and said, show me, watch me, I'm going to go regardless. And so they were all able to go to the Hans Mill Massacre site. So they got to have an experience.

Richard She's been absolutely fantastic.

Gerrit Lynette at Arrow Lines. That's who you want.

Richard Yeah, that's it. So, yeah, hit the Mavericks, hit them hard. Gerrit, will you shout out Dan, because it's our 26th anniversary, and he's supporting me being here with my sister and our son.

Gerrit Well, Dan, Kent, I'm hoping that there's a lot of... Okay, okay, Dan, Kent, this is a shout out to you. I don't know whether or not you listen to the podcast, though. You just assume that he doesn't?

Richard No, he doesn't. I just assume if anyone asks.

Gerrit Yeah, whenever anyone asks, do they listen to the podcast, the answer is always no.

Richard It's the opposite of Ghostbusters, right?

Gerrit If anyone asks you, if you're a god, you say yes. It's the opposite with the standard truth podcast. So you shouldn't say to someone, you know, oh, did you hear the latest standard truth podcast episode? You should say, have you ever heard of the standard truth podcast? They'll say no, and then, yeah.

Richard Well, so, but Dan, congratulations. Is it 26th anniversary like today?

Gerrit I'm so sorry, Dan. What have we done? This is mainly our fault.

Richard Dan, 26th anniversary, hope that you're enjoying. I assume that he's eating grapes in his garden.

Gerrit Maybe he was happy Jackson was gone though, too.

Richard That's how my dad did his anniversaries. I assume that's how all men do anniversaries.

Gerrit Eating ribs in just his garment top. We have my mom on the tour with us, and my dad married her on Valentine's Day.

Richard That's a veteran.

Gerrit It is a bold veteran move by Pete. So, it's just only one to remember.

Richard Or one to forget.

Gerrit No, he was good. He was good about it. So, happy anniversary to the Kents. Very good. And let's see if you make 27 after this.

Richard An LDS press was destroyed in independence, but it was a big deal when the city of Nauvoo destroyed the Nauvoo Expositor. Other than LDS bias, what was it different? Oh my gosh. Why was it different? Sorry, the glasses.

Gerrit So, Richard's taking a remedial reading class. We actually have someone on the bus who's getting their masters in education, and so we're going to probably need Pam to help him out. He's struggling.

Richard What was it different? Or was it different? Why was it different?

Gerrit Okay, so talking about the destruction.

Richard Verbatim.

Gerrit You say that, but I think maybe I can't see your screen. This is actually a really good question. The reality of the reaction to the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, right? This is essentially any historian, whether they are Latter-day Saint or non-Latter-day Saint, will at least point to the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor as the throwing the match on the explosion that's going to lead to Joseph's murder. It's probably oversimplifying it to say, if he hadn't had the Expositor destroyed, well, then Joseph would have lived. Clearly, there are a lot of people that were seeking to kill Joseph Smith. And so maybe some other things would have played out. I don't really know. But just as a little bit of background, for those who don't know about the Nauvoo Expositor, it was a newspaper that was started in Nauvoo.

Gerrit And as you know, whenever you hear the name of a newspaper as the Expositor, that's, it's not exactly like, you know, sharing ads of where the best horse property is in and around Nauvoo, right? The point of it was it was created by a former member of the First Presidency, William Law, who had apostatized along with several other excommunicated folks. Several had been excommunicated. Some also apostatized the way that William Law had. And they published their paper in which they made many accusations against the leadership of the church, against the church generally. And it was seen as a real problem for Nauvoo. Now, the easy, you know, extreme anti-Mormon, you know, 720 tricky flip off of the mountain response to that is, oh yeah, see, someone was trying to say negative stuff about Joseph Smith. And so he like, totally, like totally just destroyed it.

Gerrit And then act like that, that that's something, you know, radical, that's a big deal to us today. I mean, if you were, you know, printing your local, you know, PTA newsletter and someone broke into your house and grabbed your printer and destroyed it because we will not have a cupcake sale, you would feel, you'd feel a little upset.

Richard I would be so upset.

Gerrit Yeah, over the cupcakes? Yeah, you'd be making the cupcakes, not eating the cupcakes.

Richard So we're marching on the Salt Lake Tribune, that would be frowning.

Gerrit I mean, I'm not going to, yeah, sure, people would see that as, you know, the free press is seen as, it's really enshrined in American history and American culture now. Not that it wasn't before, but the federal government was much less powerful in the 19th century. And there was a kind of, you know, existing belief that local communities had at least some level of control over what was being printed and published in their community. I mean, we can talk all we want about a free press and, you know, people have the freedom to say what they want. But we're also talking about the era in the 1830s in which Andrew Jackson's postmaster, on his own accord, the postmaster general, Amos Kendall, if you're keeping tabs on your postmaster generals at home.

Gerrit How many of you... Yeah. Oh, the other... Yeah. I don't know how many of you on your bingo card tonight had Amos Kendall, postmaster general, but you just, you won. He, of his own accord, just starts confiscating the mails of abolitionists that are writing abolitionist newsletters or papers or letters to Southern Post Office on the grounds that, well, that will incite people in the South if you do that, and plus it's what the Jackson administration wanted him to do. And so what does he do? He just refuses to deliver the mail. These people have written the letters. They're legally sent, but they are, you know, they're a newsletter saying, how could you possibly own slave? Slavery is awful. And so instead of delivering it, he just throws it out. And Amos Kendall was brought up on charges and thrown in jail. No, nothing. Nothing happened at all. In fact, the administration was happy that he was doing it.

Gerrit So this is not the same world that you live in. They live in a world where the federal government has a very hands-off approach to especially local matters in the states. And for the Latter-day Saints, when these accusations are leveled, they are pretty inciting. Why? Well, because it is not just making a mockery of Latter-day Saints. It's actually making slanderous accusations. So, for instance, one of the slanderous accusations is that the church is essentially stealing the tithing funds. And that those tithing funds are just being used to, you know, I know that no one's ever heard this before, but that the tithing funds are just being used to make the leaders of the church fat and happy and rich. No one's ever said anything like that before, but the thing that really, and there's a huge part of the Novel Expositor that talks about theology.

Gerrit One of William Law's big issue, and his brother Wilson Law, both of them, one of his big issues is that Joseph Smith is teaching that God progressed to become God. Now, that's obviously Joseph's radical teachings that are explained in the King Follett Sermon. And so he will hit that pretty hard. This idea that there was not this ex nihilo creation of all things, but in fact, there's this progression. But the main thing that, of course, is getting hard is the idea that there are Latter-day Saints practicing plural marriages. He also has a real problem with the fact that Joseph Smith ran for president. That's a big issue for him too. And that's one of the resolves they pass as a committee, is that Joseph Smith should not be endeavoring to become president. But of course, plural marriage is a big deal. And what William Law is going to say about it, because sometimes people will say, well, I don't know why they destroyed the Nauvoo Expositor.

Gerrit People were practicing plural marriage. See, he was just mad that they were saying the truth. Well, William Law deliberately uses a term that means, is a very loaded term. He doesn't call it plural marriage. He calls it spiritual wifery. Spiritual wifery is the terminology that is used by John C Bennett in his apostasy. I hate to tangent down the John C Bennett road.

Richard Well, because we're about to dive into bigamy, right?

Gerrit Well, I don't really want to talk about it at all.

Richard Okay, well, we'll go on.

Gerrit Okay, so John C Bennett was a member of the First Presidency, and he is going to use his position to create illicit relations with people in Nauvoo. He's going to essentially tell them that as long as it's two believers that aren't legally committed to one another, that you can have sexual relations broadly. And he's going to tell people that it's what Joseph Smith taught him and told him. And he's going to deceive lots of people with this claim. And he calls it spiritual wifery. This idea that there's no secular union at all. It's just this two believers can then have sexual relations because, well, because, you know, essentially like, you know, all the rest of America today, basically.

Gerrit Yeah, no justification. So, when that's found out, John C Bennett is immediately excommunicated. This is a false doctrine. And he actually makes a public confession saying, yeah, Joseph never taught me that. I was just doing it, you know. And he makes this confession, but it is an incredibly loaded term. So in Nauvoo, the term spiritual wifery means essentially just profligate adultery and fornication. That's what it means. That there is no actual union. There's no legality of it. There's no ceremony. It's just a free for all. It's just Nauvoo Woodstock, essentially. That's all it is, right? Well, are you okay?

Richard No, it's great. No, go ahead.

Intro Nauvoo Woodstock.

Gerrit This is why we don't talk about plural marriage on the podcast. We probably should have answered a different question.

Richard These were the quick hits. This happened before. It's very good. Very interesting.

Gerrit Can we go back to talking about the tense marriage?

Richard No, they're not in the depositor. They're running classifieds and talking about spiritual wifery.

Gerrit So this is what is deemed the slanderous part. Both the church is stealing funds, and that these aren't even legitimate marriages. These aren't actual religious unions. This is just John C Bennett-ism. And so it is an outrage to the people that are named in the paper because you're essentially calling them an adulterer. Now, calling someone an adulterer in public in the 19th century is a quick way to have a duel. In fact, Andrew Jackson, he's gotten a lot of playtime today. Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, actually killed a man in a duel for suggesting that his marriage was not legitimate. So, I mean, the reality is...

Richard But it kind of wasn't, right? Like the kind of falsified records.

Gerrit Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah. I mean, it... So, like, he totally... It probably wasn't. I mean, historians don't know, but probably it wasn't. So, but the point being, dueling culture, I mean, heavens. You know, we all know now because of the play Hamilton that Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. I mean, people didn't really know that before, except for maybe the peanut butter commercial where they made fun of the Aaron Burr. If that's a deep, deep cut, if you remember that, you remember. It's a milk commercial about the guy eats peanut butter, and he's like, he's like the biggest Aaron Burr, like, you know, armchair historian that's ever existed. And he just takes a gigantic bite of peanut butter. And he's listening to like a radio show that's like, and you can win tickets if someone can tell us who shot Alexander Hamilton. And, and, and of course, like all around him on the wall are pictures of Aaron Burr, the guns that shot. And there's even behind him in glass case, the bullet that killed Alexander Hamilton.

Gerrit And so he calls up and he's like, and he's like, oh, you got an answer voice. Give us the answer. And he's like, oh, he's like, oh, I'm having trouble understanding it. He's like, I'm sorry, we're gonna have to go on to the next caller. And then, and then he just, you know, hangs up and he's devastated. And then, you know, it's, you know, got milk because he tried to pour some milk and there was no milk left. And so we'll link the video in the description. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's, I do remember that commercial.

Richard It's very funny.

Gerrit Let's pretend that I didn't say any of that. So it is a, it's an honor culture. And in this honor culture, doing is, is, is still looked down, but it is also, it's also something that goes on with, with regular.

Richard So we do have from the, from the extensive research staff, the crack research staff. I did receive a fact that that was actually the, that was directed by Jerry Bruckheimer, that commercial.

Gerrit So I wonder who the crack research staff was.

Richard What about that first commercial directed by Jerry Bruckheimer? There you go.

Gerrit Right. The more you know. Anyway, the dueling culture is fairly common because of people's honor, and here there is this claim that people are committing adultery, which is a claim upon people's honor. Also, the Latter-day Saints have experienced in Missouri what happens when people are allowed to make all kinds of outlandish claims without any response. The Nauvoo City Council believes that there is precedence because their charter says they have the right to remove a nuisance to the town, and so they go through legal dictionaries basically and cases, and they find cases where presses have been removed because they were nuisances to the town. And so that's their justification for ordering its removal.

Gerrit And of course, like the question, it leads to the explosion. The anti-Mormon sentiment is now, you know, it's full-throated and it allows...

Richard I'm trying to get in with something. I'm very excited. So the Reverend Lovejoy...

Gerrit I'm about there. You're just all over the top of it. So this destruction of the press is something they at least deemed to be legal, but already not just being deemed to be legal. Culturally, they have multiple examples of presses having been destroyed and it not leading to a whole heck of a lot of reaction. The first is their own press. Not a whole lot of national outcry about the sanctity of freedom of the press when their own printing press in Jackson County is pitched out a second floor window and its type is destroyed along with the pages of the Book of Commandments. Grand total number of people who were convicted of that crime? Nobody. Number of people who were charged for that crime? Nobody. What was the justification that was given by the mob? They even give it.

Gerrit What the press is publishing is offensive to our community, so therefore we destroy it. But the best example actually is in Illinois itself. In Illinois itself, so same states, we're not even comparing Missouri to Illinois. In Illinois, not even a decade earlier, in Alton, Illinois, which is further down the river there, an abolitionist preacher moved to Alton, Illinois. His name is Elijah Lovejoy, and at least according to the creator of the Simpsons, it's who Elijah Lovejoy is based on for the Simpsons, if you're wondering. You probably weren't, but if you were, that's what he's based on. Elijah Lovejoy is an abolitionist, and abolitionists are hated in the United States at that time. And you might be thinking, wait a minute, Illinois is a free state. You should have been fined. Most Americans in the North, while they were not pro-slavery or at the expansion of slavery, they saw abolitionism as a negative.

Gerrit Very, very, very few Americans were actually abolitionists. So when Elijah Lovejoy moves there, the town kind of says to him, hey, fine, you can move here, but you better not, you better not be printing any of your abolitionist stuff that you've done. He says, okay, you know, I promise, and then immediately begins publishing his abolitionist newspaper. And so the town takes action. They march to his printing shop, they grab his printing press, they carry it down to the Mississippi River, and they throw it in the river. So Elijah Lovejoy gets a second press and sets it up, and then the town comes and they grab his press and they throw it in the river. And the third time he gets another press, and then they actually shoot and kill him this time. And then you think at this point, why don't we just keep the press? I mean, you know, presses are expensive. They still take the press and they throw it in the river.

Richard It's like the search for the Holy Grail.

Gerrit It really is. It's like the swamp castle, right? You know, so ability, there's always deft ability in the swamp. It sank into the swamp. The second castle, it sank into the swamp. The third castle, it burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. The fourth one stayed up. In this case, so you have multiple destructions of presses in Alton, Illinois. Nobody, nobody is charged for this. Nobody's convicted of this. No one's convicted of Elijah Lovejoy's murder. He's murdered. And so I think for Aladair Day Saints, they look at what, how Illinois reacted when Elijah Lovejoy's press was destroyed, when their own press was destroyed, and they look at their own charter, and they say, okay, maybe if we destroy this press, they'll be able to file a lawsuit against us because we destroyed their property.

Gerrit It's not a crime, but we, you know, maybe they'll say that we destroyed their property and we owe them for damages. Okay, it's a civil matter, but not a criminal one. And of course, it becomes a criminal one. So that's a brief answer to the reason why, yes, Latter-day Saints are treated differently than others are in that sense, but so are abolitionists. Abolitionists are treated poorly in Alton, Illinois, and they don't receive justice for the things that happen to them either.

Richard So in line with that, the next question, how can we start a Mormon reparations movement?

Gerrit The Mormon reparations movement. First of all, it'd have to be the Latter-day Saint reparations movement. I mean, look, sometimes people will ask that. They'll say, you know, we have all this property that was stolen from the saints. Couldn't we just go get it back through the courts? Couldn't we say, you know what, you're actually on my great-great-great-grandfather's property. Time to give it over. There actually is precedent for this, an attempt to get property back that was stolen by the mom. It wasn't our church though. So the reorganized church is going to claim that the temple site that you all went to, where the Jackson County Temple was supposed to be built, that that was still legally owned by them, even though it had been squatted on by the people who stole it for half a century.

Gerrit And the court is going to determine in an appeal that yes, even if the reorganized church had title to that land, and even if it is their title, too much time has elapsed in order to try to either get the land back or to get damages for the land. And also, I mean, let's be, you know, think of what the PR nightmare that would be for the church. Imagine if the church was trying to evict people living on property like, well, I know you and your family have lived there for 150 years, but we lived there 151 years ago, and it's about time that we get it back. I mean, that's not a way to win friends and influence people, if you're wondering. So, no, our church does not, I don't anticipate that there will be a movement like that.

Richard Oh, the Celtics rule out Porzingis, actually.

Gerrit Oh boy, that's going to change the line.

Richard It did, three and a half for the Mavericks. Sorry, we're doing, yeah, next question.

Gerrit I thought you were just doing more gambling picks than our gambling picks.

Richard All right, so, Gerrit, you shared the community of Christ, tried to recover through the courts.

Gerrit Oh, I just answered that. Right, through the courts? Yep.

Richard Way to be efficient.

Gerrit Yeah, I was trying to, I was killing two birds with one stone, yeah.

Richard All right, next up, Gerrit, Disney has their top ten villains. Would you say, who would you say are the top ten villains of the Restoration? I'm guessing the Philastus Hurlbut, John C Bennett, Governor Boggs, Thomas Marsh, George Hinkle, and Thomas Sharp would make the list. How does that align with your list? Who else should be at it? Lucy?

Gerrit It's honestly, like, it's, this is too difficult to question. I don't want to be, first of all. So many terrible people.

Intro They're legion, Gary.

Gerrit And plus, I feel very, I feel very judgmental doing that.

Richard Yeah. Yeah. You're being judgmental of Governor Boggs. Super judgy.

Gerrit Okay. All right. Well done. I think maybe there are a couple that we need to, we need to place in there, but I don't want to put them in any order. Right? So let's just, let's just throw names up there.

Richard You say names, I'll put a top 10 list together.

Gerrit Look, obviously, obviously Lilburn Boggs has to be up there. And that's because as we've all learned from Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility. Okay. I mean, so if you're the governor of a state and you order the extermination of a group of people in that state, well, you're kind of responsible. I mean, you know, you know, Missourians would tell you because of Truman, the buck stops here, right? I mean, so, I mean, the buck stops with Lilburn Boggs. So I think he has to be up there just in the fact of the number of people that died. But you know, honestly, for me, I think I would probably place Governor Ford as worse than Governor Ford.

Richard Well, I mean, we've talked about this. When we were watching the dedication of the Nauvoo Temple, and we were in, I think, Logan at the time.

Gerrit Yeah.

Richard We were in Logan and probably at that toaster church that's there.

Gerrit Yeah.

Richard We were in Logan and probably at that toaster church that's there.

Gerrit It was destroyed. It was very sad. I mean, it was torn down and made a nice, you know.

Richard So, we're watching that and I remember President Hinckley, during the temple dedication, specifically blaming Governor Ford for the death of Joseph Smith. And I remember looking at you and you were like, oh snap.

Gerrit It was pretty awesome. I love President Hinckley and how passionate he was about it. President Hinckley was passionate about the fact that people had made decisions that cost people their lives. And my point for saying that is, again, you know, he's a governor. So he has an awful lot to do with what happens. I mean, it's one thing for your average Joe Schmo to, you know, to say, well, I don't know if I want these Mormons living here. That's one thing. It's quite another when it's someone in so much position of power. There's all kinds of questions about, you. Know, how much did Governor Ford know and did he deliberately conspire to have Joseph Smith killed? I know that people make those accusations. They're not really deemed credible by historians, primarily because historians require evidence. And do we have sources where there's someone saying, hey, make sure you leave Joseph in Carthage and march to Nauvoo so that he can be killed?

Gerrit No, you don't have that. And it does actually seem that Ford's reaction to Joseph's murder is shock, that he is really shocked and horrified at it. Not horrified, but like stunned and not ready for it. You know, he has to kind of scramble a little bit. But then on top of that, you have, you know, could he have done more certainly to protect Joseph Smith?

Richard Every time you get an answer right, you get a ding. Oh really? So we're half hour in and you're just starting to get dinged. But every time, every time the bell rings, Angel gets his wings and you got an answer right. Three straight answers.

Gerrit Yeah, I believe I was just saying the same thing.

Richard You are, you have, that's why you keep playing the hit, saying the same thing.

Gerrit Well, so I don't know. I mean, obviously no one knows how much at fault Governor Ford is for Joseph's murder. We do know a few things. Governor Ford, I will protect you with the state, the whole force of the state of Illinois. Joseph Smith, no longer alive. Okay, so best case scenario for Thomas Ford is he is horribly, ridiculously, criminally incompetent. That's his best case scenario, because Joseph wrote to him when he was ordered to go to this change of venue, to be tried again for the destruction of the expositor. Joseph wrote to him and said, We dare not come. You claim that you're going to protect us, but at the same time you say that there's such a mobocratic feeling, you don't know if you can hold everything together.

Gerrit Which is it, right? Don't worry, I can protect you, but I may not be able to protect you. So Joseph has already made it clear, the governor, no, no, I will protect you. What's clear is, Governor Ford did not protect Joseph Smith. Now, we could have all kinds of arguments about whether or not he intended to or whether he should have done more, whatever. There's still a fact on the ground. Joseph went to Carthage because, at least in response to, in part, Governor Ford promising that he would be safe. And he was not safe. So at the best case scenario is he is an utterly incompetent commander. Or he's just a liar. I mean, he knew he wasn't going to really try to protect him or at least not go out of his way and just said that he would. That's probably the most likely case is that he's just an incompetent buffoon.

Gerrit The problem is that's not the end of our interactions with Thomas Ford. The real reason why I would put Thomas Ford up there and why I smiled very big when President Hinckley shook that book, History of Illinois, in front of the Saints is because of what happens after Joseph is dead. After Joseph is murdered, Thomas Ford, you know, the Latter-day Saints become a real political liability for him in the state. And so he will do a couple of things. I mean, well, he does a lot of things, but two that are most problematic. He will write, when the Latter-day Saints say that they're about to leave, I think Ford is a little worried that if the Latter-day Saints leave the United States and go to Mexico and like go join Mexico, that people are going to blame him for letting this huge body of people go join the then, you know, soon to be enemies of the United States, the Mexican Wars right around the corner.

Gerrit Or maybe this huge body of saints will go to Oregon territory and join the British. I mean, a whole bunch of the Latter-day Saints are British anyway. And so I think Ford's concerned about what it will look like if he just does nothing to prevent this huge armed body of people to leave to a foreign nation. So he actually writes to the President of the United States through the Senator of Illinois, trying to get President Polk to intervene in the Latter-day Saints' plan to leave. Polk responds, well, I could, you know, in his journal anyway, says, I told him that I could not interfere with their, you know, with their religion, no matter how absurd I thought it was. Basically said he's not going to intervene. So first, if there was going to be a federal intervention against the Mormons, it was because Thomas Ford asked for it as a governor of a state, but he had already gotten an answer.

Gerrit No, the federal government is not going to intervene. But Thomas Ford deliberately tells Latter-day Saint leaders in Nauvoo, this is in 1845, that there is an army coming, that he knows there's an army coming, and that the army is going to either stop them from leaving, arrest all of the Quorum of the Twelve, and they're marching on Nauvoo. He writes a letter to Jacob Backenstos, who is the sheriff of Hancock County, and tells him an army's coming. A lot of lies surrounding that statement. First, the only reason an army would be coming is you tried to surreptitiously get one. Two, an army isn't actually coming. Now, I know we throw the words lie and truth around a lot, but in this case, it's actually really easy to say that Governor Ford is a liar.

Gerrit I know that's grating on some of your ears. You're thinking, really? You're going to say he's a liar? Yes. I'm going to say he's a liar, because Governor Ford is the one who tells me he's a liar. In his book, History of Illinois, that President Hinckley waves around at the temple dedication, he says, in order to hasten the Mormons' removal, I'm paraphrasing this, although I'm pretty close actually, they were made to believe that an army was coming and that this had the desired effect. The leaders of the Latter-day Saints, he said the leaders of the Mormons, along with 2,000 or so of their followers, immediately crossed before the breaking up of the ice. So you'll wonder when you're in Nauvoo, hey, why did you decide to leave in February?

Gerrit That's like literally the worst possible time. I mean, if you've ever been in Nauvoo in February, you know about it. I mean, it is not a warm place to be. Why would you leave with women and children and wagons? Why would you leave in the dead of winter? Well, you leave in the dead of winter because Thomas Ford lied to everyone and said, an army is coming now. And so the Latter Day Saints left. And think of how many people die in Iowa. Think of how many people are buried along those muddy tracks on the way to Garden Grove and Mount Pisgah and then in winter quarters. How many of them don't take enough because they're hustled out of their homes when they didn't actually have to leave that early? So I don't know what level of culpability Thomas Ford has in the death of Joseph Smith in Carthage, clearly incompetence at the very least.

Gerrit But I know exactly what level of responsibility he has in the death of the Saints going through Iowa because he brags about it. And the crazy part about it is, just to show you how hated Mormons are in the 1850s, he writes that book in 1854 and brags about it. This is after it's well known that there's a thousand people that die in Iowa. A thousand people who leave Nauvoo, go to winter quarters, will not leave winter quarters. So it's not like he doesn't know that it was a human catastrophe. But there he is in his book. Hey, you know that? I'm the one who made him leave when they did in the middle of winter. So, we don't have time to do a top ten. I think we'll just do him as my top one. But for me, Thomas Ford is right up there.

Richard So where would you rank some of these other folks though, like in Eber Howe, Philastus Hurlbut, John C Bennett, where they aren't as directly responsible for some of the things like Boggs and Ford, but the things that they do create the fervor in which a Ford and a Boggs do some of the things that they do?

Gerrit I mean, I think that's why it's really hard to rank some of them, right? So look at Thomas Marsh. I mean, he should be the most senior member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and he's swearing out this ridiculous false affidavit against Joseph Smith that's used as a pretext for not only justifying the violence in Missouri, but also for keeping Joseph Smith incarcerated. But there also is a pretty big difference between Thomas Marsh and Philastus Hurlbut. One was an apostle, and the most senior apostle. In fact, Thomas Marsh was actually only a couple of months earlier, himself excommunicating a bunch of the people that weren't properly in line with church doctrine in Far West. And he, by a lot of counts, he's taking a great, you know, a great vigor to that role. So, I mean, I don't know how you balance that in the sense that certainly Thomas Marsh had a lot more responsibility because of the religious power that he had rather than the secular power that he had.

Gerrit Of course, Thomas Marsh eventually does come back to the church. So, what do you do with that? Kind of hard to call someone the top ten villain when they're, you know, buried in Ogden. I mean, I'm sure there's some villains buried in Ogden. I mean, I saw a couple of people say, I have in-laws buried in Ogden. I mean, the reality is that his is at least a story of partial redemption. Whereas, you know, Thomas Ford isn't writing in his book, man, I wish I wouldn't have done something that got so many people killed. Instead, it's like, good thing we got rid of him when we did. So, so I think that makes it a little bit difficult. You know, it's almost like you'd have to do great apostates versus great, you know, external villains. Dr. Philastus Hurlbut is obviously a big deal. He's probably not more problematic than Ibr Howe, though, because Ibr Howe is what makes Philastus Hurlbut's, you know, crazy have legs.

Gerrit You know what I mean? So Hurlbut's making all kinds of claims that even get him, you know, convicted of threatening to wound, beat or kill Joseph Smith. But his arguments and the affidavits he collects have power because Ibr Howe publishes them in the first anti-Mormon book, Mormonism Unveiled. And why does that matter? Well, it matters because Mormonism Unveiled is then the basis of essentially every other anti-Mormon book. John C Bennett, for instance, you brought up John C Bennett's book, History of the Saints, is a lot of cut and paste. I mean, he would have gotten a poor plagiarism check score from a professor for what he just takes from Ibr Howe's book and places in his. I think John C Bennett's a greater villain than Ibr Howe, again, because he was a member of the First Presidency. And he's using his position to surreptitiously commit adultery. And then after he's found out, is going to claim, oh, I never committed adultery at all.

Gerrit They just they knew I was going to expose their crime. John C Bennett's like a crazy, crazy liar. I mean, this guy, I don't even know exactly what his position is because he changes his position over and over and over. So he comes and joins the church. He's a member of the First Presidency, commits multiple adulteries, excommunicated. He will then claim in a book that he writes that he never, ever believed in the Latter-day Saints at all. That because he was just a good American, he just heard about them and decided he would stop their villainy because those Mormons are evil. And so he went there and pretended to believe and then joined himself to the Latter-day Saints to expose them. So he's this great undercover narc hero. And he makes that claim. And then, of course, after he makes that claim, he will join himself to the Strangite Church and become a part of them. So are you trying to expose them as well?

Gerrit I mean, he's just all over the place. But one of the things he's going to claim is that he never committed adultery. The charges were trumped up against him and that he was just being railroaded because he was trying to expose Latter-day Saint nefariousness. So for years, he's making this claim. And then we have at least a newspaper record from a speech he's given in Boston, I believe, where he admits to the crowd that he had had an affair with a fair princess of Nauvoo. So after years of saying, there was literally nothing to the claims that he had committed adultery, even though he had publicly admitted that he committed adultery, but he'd been forced to admit it, so he didn't really commit adultery, even though he later admits that he committed adultery. It's in a public meeting that that's reported. So John C Bennett is pretty high up there.

Richard So what about the guy that shot Reagan? George Hinkle.

Gerrit I don't think that's the same person. Yeah, I'm not a fan.

Richard But George Hinkle then?

Gerrit Not a fan. So George Hinkle is certainly who Joseph perceives as being one of the greatest traitors to the faith because of his role in... He is the one that causes Joseph and the other leaders of the church in far west to go out to a, quote, peace conference where they're then arrested and they threaten to shoot them. So I think that one, that's a deep cut that really hurts Joseph because Hinkle is his friend, Hinkle is a faithful member, and Hinkle is betraying them. But you don't have, you know, Hinkle over the course of the next 30 years publishing a whole bunch of anti-moral material either, you know what I mean? So his is a very terrible action that has limited time frame that the action is going on. Well, I think that we've probably covered as much of this as we possibly can now. So I just want to thank everybody for joining us here for our live broadcast.

Gerrit And let's hear from you one more. I like the fact that we have to tell them to applaud, and that's basically how it is for anyone who listens to the podcast. But thank you for your questions. Thank you so much for listening, and we look forward to talking to you again next week. Thank you so much.

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.

Top Villains of the Restoration

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Gordon B. Hinckley, April 2005 general conference, on gambling (said on air as "the five April conference")

Nauvoo Expositor (1844), published by William Law and others

King Follett Sermon

John C. Bennett's public confession (1842)

Nauvoo city charter, nuisance provision

Book of Commandments (pages destroyed in Jackson County, 1833)

Elijah Lovejoy's abolitionist newspaper, Alton, Illinois

Reorganized Church's lawsuit over the Independence temple site (appeal decision)

Gordon B. Hinckley, remarks at the Nauvoo Temple dedication

Joseph Smith to Governor Thomas Ford, June 1844

James K. Polk's journal

Governor Thomas Ford to Sheriff Jacob Backenstos, 1845

Thomas Ford, History of Illinois (1854)

Thomas B. Marsh's affidavit against Joseph Smith (1838)

Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unveiled (1834)

John C. Bennett, The History of the Saints (1842)

Newspaper report of a John C. Bennett speech (Boston, Gerrit believes)

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From 1845 to 1854

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Top Villains of the Restoration

Live from Keokuk

Gordon B. Hinckley, April 2005 general conference, on gambling (said on air as "the five April conference")

Nauvoo Expositor (1844), published by William Law and others

King Follett Sermon

John C. Bennett's public confession (1842)

Nauvoo city charter, nuisance provision

Book of Commandments (pages destroyed in Jackson County, 1833)

Elijah Lovejoy's abolitionist newspaper, Alton, Illinois

Reorganized Church's lawsuit over the Independence temple site (appeal decision)

Gordon B. Hinckley, remarks at the Nauvoo Temple dedication

Joseph Smith to Governor Thomas Ford, June 1844

James K. Polk's journal

Governor Thomas Ford to Sheriff Jacob Backenstos, 1845

Thomas Ford, History of Illinois (1854)

Thomas B. Marsh's affidavit against Joseph Smith (1838)

Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unveiled (1834)

John C. Bennett, The History of the Saints (1842)

Newspaper report of a John C. Bennett speech (Boston, Gerrit believes)

Where was this live episode recorded?

From 1845 to 1854

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

Signature words