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General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, circa 26 January–7 February 1844

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General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, circa 26 January–7 February 1844

Source Note

JS, General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States (Nauvoo, IL: John Taylor, 1844); twelve pages. Includes archival markings and notations. The copy used for transcription is held at CHL.
The pamphlet is printed on a duodecimo sheet, forming twelve pages from two half sheets with a gathering of four leaves and another gathering of two leaves. The gathering of four leaves, consisting of the first eight pages of the pamphlet, was sewn. The gathering of two leaves, consisting of the last four pages, was then sewn to the first gathering, making a twelve-page pamphlet. The original measurements of the leaves are unknown. The copy of the pamphlet from which this transcript was made was bound with other pamphlets and trimmed. Each leaf now measures 8¾ × 5¾ inches (22 × 15 cm).
This copy of the pamphlet apparently belonged to church . The name “H. C. Kimball” appears to be written in graphite on the edge of the back page, but a portion of the inscription was cut off by subsequent trimming. Notations written on the pamphlet’s pages related to the compiling of JS’s 1838–1856 history indicate that by 1856 the pamphlet was in the custody of the Church Historian’s Office (now CHL).

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    See George A. Smith, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to Wilford Woodruff, 21 Apr. 1856, copy, in Historian’s Office, Historical Record Book, 218–221, CHL.

    Historian’s Office. Historical Record Book, 1843–1874. CHL. MS 3434.

Historical Introduction

Between 26 January and 7 February 1844, JS and one of his scribes, , composed a pamphlet that summarized JS’s political platform as a candidate for president of the . JS agreed to run for president on 29 January 1844 at the behest of other leaders who had determined that it was in the best interest of the church and its members to support an independent candidate in that year’s presidential election. That same day, JS described to Phelps his opinions on the powers and policies of the federal government and instructed Phelps to draft “an address to the people” that summarized these views. Even at a time when presidential hopefuls were increasingly involved in electioneering efforts, it was a bold step for a candidate to publish a campaign pamphlet he had written. Whereas other candidates could publicize their respective political positions in congressional speeches that they were confident would be reported in newspapers throughout the country, JS did not enjoy such a national public forum.
The pamphlet, titled General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, commences with a brief history of the that focuses on the administrations of the country’s first ten presidents. It includes excerpts from the inaugural, annual, and farewell addresses of most of the presidents but does not describe in depth the actions of their respective administrations. The pamphlet celebrates the terms of the first seven presidents and depicts the United States as a country that was founded with great promises of ensuring liberty for its individual citizens before the country started to devolve.
Narratives of the country’s decline and plans to restore the nation to its proper course were common in nineteenth-century America and were regularly used by presidential candidates. JS’s claim was unique in that he identified the presidency of as the precise moment when the decline began. JS had been a vocal critic of Van Buren since meeting with the president in in 1839. During their meeting, Van Buren refused to assist the Latter-day Saints in their efforts to obtain redress and reparations from the federal government for their expulsion from . Accordingly, the pamphlet depicts Van Buren as having been unconcerned with maintaining the constitutional rights of the American people. It suggests that JS had hoped Van Buren’s successor, William Henry Harrison, would protect the rights of the Saints and other religious minority groups. Harrison, however, died just thirty days into his term and was succeeded by , whose administration JS believed only compounded the country’s problems.
The remainder of the pamphlet consists of JS’s political platform framed as a plan to improve the government of the and the lives of its citizens. It includes several proposals for reform, including constitutional, economic, and social measures, and focuses on minority rights, a national bank, the criminal justice system, the abolition of slavery, and territorial expansion. JS’s primary call for constitutional reform was to empower the president of the United States to dispatch the army to suppress mobs in individual states without first receiving a request from a state’s governor to do so. As evidence of the need for this procedural change, JS referred to the persecution of Latter-day Saints in during the 1830s and their eventual expulsion from that state under the threat of government-sanctioned extermination. JS also proposed reducing the size of the United States House of Representatives by adjusting the ratio set forth in the Constitution that dictates the number of representatives to which a state is entitled according to the state’s population.
JS’s proposals for economic reform centered on banking. He called for the establishment of a national bank with branches in every state and territory and officers who would be elected by the American people and paid a modest per diem for their service. He stated that such a network of banks would ensure a dependable national currency and would ease financial difficulties caused by the irregularities and frequent shortages of currency throughout the country. The had previously chartered two national banks, both of which were private institutions. Critics of those banks claimed that they were unconstitutional, that they primarily served the interests of wealthy speculators, and, in the case of the Second Bank of the United States, that its corrupt administration generated wealth for the bank’s directors at the expense of average Americans. JS’s plan for a public national bank with safeguards against corruption differed from how these earlier institutions operated.
As part of his call for social reform, JS proposed an overhaul of the criminal justice system in the . In previous decades, Americans had started advocating for prison reform, decrying the inhumane treatment of prisoners. JS singled out the penitentiary movement, which focused on reforming prisoners, as misguided. The pamphlet calls for a drastic decrease in the number of people incarcerated in prisons and penitentiaries. Furthermore, the pamphlet suggests that the system that sentenced people to prison was flawed and administered justice unevenly based on the economic status of the accused.
The pamphlet also calls for an end to slavery. In 1844 the issue of slavery in the was becoming increasingly divisive, and even those who supported ending the practice disagreed about how to accomplish that goal. JS proposed that the federal government solve the problem by phasing out slavery by 1850 through gradual manumission and compensating slaveholders with money raised by the federal government through the sale of its public lands in the West. While JS supported ending slavery, in this pamphlet and in other settings he was critical of the approach of some abolitionists without elaborating on his reasons for such criticism.
Another polarizing issue in American politics in 1844—partly because of its relation to slavery—was territorial expansion. At the time, Great Britain and the had competing claims on , and Americans debated whether to divide the territory between the two countries and, if so, how to divide it. JS argued that the United States was entitled to the entire territory. The proposed annexation of the was even more politically fraught. In the 1820s, thousands of slaveholders started to move from the southern United States to Texas, which was still part of . After Texas won its independence in 1836, many of these southerners increased their calls for the United States to annex their new republic. However, because the annexation of Texas would facilitate the expansion of slavery in the United States, many Americans in northern states opposed legislation that would bring Texas into the union. But Americans on both sides of the slavery debate, including JS, feared that if the United States did not acquire Texas, Great Britain would do so, or at least would exercise greater influence on the republic, which would threaten the preeminence of the United States in North America. In February 1844, Secretary of State Abel Upshur was secretly negotiating a peaceful annexation with Texas officials. JS held that Texas should be welcomed into the union if the republic formally requested annexation.
presumably started drafting the pamphlet on 29 January, immediately after JS summarized his political views. However, three days earlier, on 26 January, JS had instructed Phelps “to write a piece on the situati[o]n of the nation” that referred to the annual messages of past presidents of the . This request was likely in response to the annual address to Congress that President had delivered in printed form in December 1843. Phelps apparently never finished that response, and it is unknown how much, if any, of it he drafted. Because General Smith’s Views begins by focusing on the country’s past presidents and quotes extensively from their respective speeches, Phelps may have started writing about the annual messages to Congress on or shortly after 26 January and then after 29 January incorporated what he had written into this pamphlet.
worked on the pamphlet with another of JS’s scribes, . The only extant manuscript draft is in Bullock’s handwriting with insertions by Phelps. It is unclear if Bullock played any role in the drafting process besides serving as a scribe or copyist. Phelps presented the draft to JS on 5 February, at which time JS presumably approved it. However, Phelps then worked more on the draft, concluding his efforts on 7 February, as indicated by a dateline at the end of the document. At a political meeting in , Illinois, three days later, Phelps read the text for the pamphlet publicly for the first time. Those attending the meeting voted unanimously to approve the pamphlet.
After the text was approved, JS arranged for to print fifteen hundred copies of the pamphlet in the church’s in . JS’s journal entry for 24 February notes that the pamphlets were “out of press.” The next day, citizens of Nauvoo held a meeting on the second floor of , during which they prayed that the pamphlet “might be [s]pread far & wide— & be the means of op[en]ing the hea[r]ts of th[e] people.” On 27 February, JS mailed copies of General Smith’s Views to and the members of his cabinet, the nine justices of the Supreme Court, several senators and representatives in the Congress, the governor of each state, the editors of prominent newspapers throughout the country, several postmasters, and various unidentified individuals. In total, JS mailed approximately two hundred copies of the pamphlet. The remaining copies sold out by 8 May, spurring new printings. In addition, General Smith’s Views was published in its entirety in issues of both Nauvoo newspapers, the Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor. In spring 1844, JS and the church sent out hundreds of electioneering missionaries, who carried the pamphlet with them throughout the country. Because of public demand for the pamphlet, several missionaries commissioned new printings from printers in the areas in which they were campaigning.
Although General Smith’s Views was generally well received in and by church members throughout the country, those outside of the church often responded negatively. The editors who covered JS’s candidacy in their respective newspapers were mostly critical or dismissive of JS and rarely engaged with his political platform. One of the most prominent responses to the pamphlet by a newspaper editor was published by in ’s Daily Globe on 14 March 1844.
The version featured here is the first edition of the pamphlet originally published in .

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    See Minutes and Discourse, 29 Jan. 1844.

  2. [2]

    JS, Journal, 29 Jan. 1844.

  3. [3]

    Cheathem, Coming of Democracy, 9–11.

    Cheathem, Mark R. The Coming of Democracy: Presidential Campaigning in the Age of Jackson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

  4. [4]

    In 1843 Edward Walker published a new edition of a book that contained the annual messages to Congress delivered by each president, including John Tyler. This is likely the source from which JS and Phelps extracted the quotations they used in this pamphlet. (The Addresses and Messages of the Presidents of the United States, from Washington to Tyler . . . , 4th ed. [New York: Edward Walker, 1843].)

    The Addresses and Messages of the Presidents of the United States, from Washington to Tyler, Embracing the Executive Proclamations, Recommendations, Protests, and Vetoes, from 1789 to 1843, together with the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States. 4th ed. New York: Edward Walker, 1843.

  5. [5]

    See Bercovitch, American Jeremiad, 142–143; and Cheathem, Coming of Democracy, 39–43, 134–135.

    Bercovitch, Sacvan. The American Jeremiad. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978.

    Cheathem, Mark R. The Coming of Democracy: Presidential Campaigning in the Age of Jackson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

  6. [6]

    Letter to Hyrum Smith and Nauvoo High Council, 5 Dec. 1839; Discourse, 1 Mar. 1840; see also McBride, “When Joseph Smith Met Martin Van Buren,” 150–158.

    McBride, Spencer W. Pulpit and Nation: Clergymen and the Politics of Revolutionary America. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017.

  7. [7]

    In 1834 church members in Missouri wrote a petition to President Andrew Jackson requesting federal intervention to protect them from mob violence and to aid them in regaining land in Jackson County, Missouri, from which they had been expelled. Secretary of War Lewis Cass responded that the president did not have the authority to send troops to Missouri to aid in the enforcement of state laws. Later appeals for federal help in obtaining redress and reparations for the Saints’ losses in Missouri were met with similar responses. (See Edward Partridge et al., Petition to Andrew Jackson, 10 Apr. 1834, copy; Lewis Cass, Washington DC, to Sidney Gilbert et al., Liberty, MO, 2 May 1834, William W. Phelps, Collection of Missouri Documents, CHL; Report of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 4 Mar. 1840; and “Latter-day Saints,” Alias Mormons: The Petition of the Latter-day Saints, Commonly Known as Mormons, House of Representatives doc. no. 22, 26th Cong., 2nd Sess. [1840].)

    Phelps, William W. Collection of Missouri Documents, 1833–1837. CHL. MS 657.

    “Latter-day Saints,” Alias Mormons: The Petition of the Latter-day Saints, Commonly Known as Mormons. House of Representatives doc. no. 22, 26th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1840).

  8. [8]

    Congress established the first Bank of the United States in 1791 but did not renew its charter in 1811. Congress then established the Second Bank of the United States in 1816, but President Andrew Jackson effectively stripped the bank of its financial power when he ordered the federal government to withdraw its funds in 1832. The bank’s charter officially expired in 1836. (Murphy, Other People’s Money, 64–67, 80–81, 96.)

    Murphy, Sharon Ann. Other People’s Money: How Banking Worked in the Early American Republic. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2017.

  9. [9]

    Murphy, Other People’s Money, 66–67, 80–85, 96.

    Murphy, Sharon Ann. Other People’s Money: How Banking Worked in the Early American Republic. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2017.

  10. [10]

    The 5 February 1844 entry in JS’s journal states, “I was the first one who publicly proposed a national Bank on the principles I had advanced.” (JS, Journal, 5 Feb. 1844.)

  11. [11]

    Gottschalk, Prison and the Gallows, 43–48, 52–55. After visiting the United States in 1831, French political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville described the conditions of American prisons and noted that the country’s legal system often incarcerated low-income individuals while people with more resources remained free by paying fines. Tocqueville called the American prison system the “remains of aristocratic institutions in the midst of a complete democracy.” During the 1840s and 1850s, several individuals and organizations dedicated to the reform of American prisons published reports on the state of those institutions. (Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1:46; see also D. L. Dix, Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline in the United States [Boston: Munroe and Francis, 1845]; and Reports of the Prison Discipline Society, Boston, vols. 2–3 [Boston: T. R. Marvin, 1855].)

    Gottschalk, Marie. The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

    Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Translated by Henry Reeve. 2 vols. London: Saunders and Otley, 1835.

    Dix, Dorothea L. Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline in the United States. Boston: Munroe and Francis, 1845.

    Reports of the Prison Discipline Society, Boston. 3 vols. Boston: T. R. Marvin, 1855.

  12. [12]

    The first penitentiary in the United States opened in Philadelphia in 1790. Proponents of the new institution celebrated it as an important reform to the criminal justice system in the United States, one that focused on improving prisoners during their incarceration by utilizing solitary confinement, religious instruction, and hard labor. Opponents of the penitentiary movement claimed that such institutions and methods were “unrepublican” and inhumane. (Manion, Liberty’s Prisoners, 10–14, 76; Ayers, Vengeance and Justice, 44–49.)

    Manion, Jen. Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.

    Ayers, Edward L. Vengeance and Justice: Crime and Punishment in the 19th­Century American South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.

  13. [13]

    Antislavery advocates in nineteenth-century America were divided on the question of whether those freed from slavery should be allowed to remain in their native states, permitted to move elsewhere in the United States, or sent to other locations. For example, the American Colonization Society founded Liberia in western Africa as a home for freed enslaved persons. JS never set forth a definitive plan for persons freed from slavery. He had sold land in Nauvoo, Illinois, to free people of color, but in a March 1844 discourse he also suggested that some former enslaved persons could be relocated to Mexico. (Sinha, Slave’s Cause, 161–171; Bond to Elijah Able, 8 Dec. 1839; Discourse, 7 Mar. 1844–B.)

    Sinha, Manisha. The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.

  14. [14]

    Prior to 1844, several abolitionist groups had attempted paid emancipation but on a much smaller scale, buying the freedom of one enslaved person at a time. After the American Revolution, several states permitted manumission under a variety of circumstances, including a person purchasing an enslaved person’s freedom or, less commonly, an enslaved person purchasing his or her own freedom. Former enslaved persons sometimes purchased the freedom of family members. Other states outlawed manumission altogether. (Sinha, Slave’s Cause, chap. 3.)

    Sinha, Manisha. The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.

  15. [15]

    In May 1844, for example, JS reportedly told Charles Francis Adams and Josiah Quincy that he “recognized the curse and iniquity of slavery, though he opposed the methods of the Abolitionists.” However, Quincy, who recorded the conversation in his journal, did not specify JS’s precise objections. (Quincy, Figures of the Past, 378–379, 397.)

    Quincy, Josiah. Figures of the Past: From the Leaves of Old Journals. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883.

  16. [16]

    Emerson, Young American, 6; see also Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 96–97, 115, 712–722.

    Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Young American. A Lecture, Read before the Mercantile Library Association, in Boston, at the Odeon, Wednesday, February 7, 1844. London: John Chapman, 1844.

    Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

  17. [17]

    See Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 658–682.

    Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

  18. [18]

    See Discourse, 7 Mar. 1844–B; Haynes, Unfinished Revolution, chap. 10; Roeckell, “British Opposition to the Annexation of Texas,” 257–278; and Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 672.

    Haynes, Sam W. Unfinished Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010.

    Roeckell, Lelia M. “Bonds over Bondage: British Opposition to the Annexation of Texas." Journal of the Early Republic 19, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 257–278.

    Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

  19. [19]

    Greenberg, Wicked War, 15; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 679.

    Greenberg, Amy S. A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico. New York: Knopf, 2012.

    Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

  20. [20]

    “Message of the President of the United States,” Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 28th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 1–4 [1843]; “Presdent’s Message,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 27 Dec. 1843, [1]–[2]; JS, Journal, 26 and 29 Jan. 1844.

    The Congressional Globe, Containing Sketches of the Debates and Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Congress. Vol. 8. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1840.

    Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.

  21. [21]

    JS, Journal, 5 Feb. 1844; “Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States,” draft, JS Collection, CHL.

  22. [22]

    “Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States,” draft, JS Collection, CHL; Account of Meeting and Discourse, 8 Feb. 1844.

  23. [23]

    JS, Journal, 24 Feb. 1844.

  24. [24]

    JS, Journal, 25 Feb. 1844.

  25. [25]

    JS, Journal, 27 Feb. 1844.

  26. [26]

    “General Smith’s Views,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 8 May 1844, [2].

    Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.

  27. [27]

    See “Gen. Smith’s Views on the Government and Policy of the U.S.,” Times and Seasons, 15 May 1844, 5:528–533; and “General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 8 May 1844, [2].

  28. [28]

    A full list of the different printings of General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States published in Nauvoo and throughout the United States appears in the Calendar of Documents. In at least two instances in Tennessee, where slavery was legal, the pamphlet’s passages that called for the abolition of slavery created legal trouble for electioneering missionaries attempting to reprint and distribute the pamphlet. (Smoot, Diary, 25 and 29 May 1844; 4 June 1844; see also McBride, Joseph Smith for President, 120–129.)

    Smoot, Abraham O. Diary, 1836–1845. Photocopy. Abraham O. Smoot, Papers, 1836–1893. Photocopy. CHL.

    McBride, Spencer W. Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.

  29. [29]

    See, for example, “Gen. Joseph Smith a Candidate for President,” Illinois State Register (Springfield), 15 Mar. 1844, [2]; and “Mormon Movements,” New York Herald (New York City), 23 May 1844, [2]; see also McBride, “Newspaper Response to Joseph Smith’s 1844 Presidential Campaign,” 30, 36–41.

    Illinois State Register. Springfield, IL. 1839–1861.

    New York Herald. New York City. 1835–1924.

    McBride, Spencer W. “‘Many Think This Is a Hoax’: The Newspaper Response to Joseph Smith’s 1844 Presidential Campaign.” In Contingent Citizens: The Shifting Perceptions of Latter­day Saints in American Political Culture, edited by Spencer W. McBride, Brent M. Rogers, and Keith A. Erekson, 29–41. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020.

  30. [30]

    “A New Advocate for a National Bank,” Daily Globe (Washington DC), 14 Mar. 1844, [3]; see also Letter to Editor, 15 Apr. 1844. JS responded in “The Globe,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 17 Apr. 1844, [2].

    Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. “General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States,” circa 26 January–7 February 1844, Thomas Bullock Copy *General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, circa 26 January–7 February 1844 “General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States,” circa 26 January–7 February 1844, as Published in Nauvoo Neighbor “General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States,” circa 26 January–7 February 1844, as Published in Times and Seasons General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, circa 26 January–7 February 1844, Second Edition History, 1838–1856, volume E-1 [1 July 1843–30 April 1844] “History of Joseph Smith” “History of Joseph Smith”
a genuine rule of action for some of the breath made men in high places, to use towards the posterity of that noble daring people:
Be to her faults a little blind;
Be to her virtues very kind.
We have had democratic presidents: whig presidents; a pseudo democratic whig president; and now it is time to have a president of the ; and let the people of the whole , like the inflexible Romans, whenever they find a promise made by a candidate, that is not practised as an officer, hurl the miserable sycophant from his exaltation, as God did Nebuchadnezzar, to crop the grass of the field, with a beast’s heart among the cattle.
said in his inaugural address, that he went “into the presidential chair the inflexible and uncompromising opponent of every attempt, on the part of Congress, to abolish slavery in the , against the wishes of the slave holding states; and also with a determination equally decided to resist the slightest interference with it in the states where it exists.” Poor little made his rhapsodical sweep with the fact before his eyes, that the state of , his native state, had abolished slavery, without a struggle or a groan. Great God, how independent! From henceforth slavery is tolerated where it exists: constitution or no constitution; people or no people; right or wrong; vox ; vox Diaboli: “the voice of ”—“the voice of the devil;” and peradventure, his great “Sub-Treasury” scheme was a piece of the same mind: but the man and his measures have such a stricking [striking] resemblance to the anecdote of the Welchman and his cart-tongue, that, when the constitution was so long that it allowed slavery at the capitol of a free people, it could not be cut off; but when it was so short that it needed a Sub-Treasury, to save the funds of the , it could be spliced! Oh, granny, granny, what a long tail our puss has got! As a Greek might say, hysteron proteron: the cart before the horse: but his mighty whisk through the great national fire, for the presidential chesnuts, burnt the locks of his glory with the blaze of his folly!
In the the people are the government; and their united voice is the only sovereign that should rule; the only power that should be obeyed; and the only gentlemen that should be honored; at home and abroad; on the land and on the sea: Wherefore, were I the president of the , by the voice of a virtuous people, I would honor the old paths of the venerated fathers of freedom: I would walk in the tracks of the illustrious patriots, who carried the ark of the government upon their shoulders with an eye single to the glory of the people: and when that people petitioned to abolish slavery in the slave states, I would use all honorable means to have their prayers granted: and give liberty to the captive; by paying the southern gentleman a reasonable equivalent for his property, that the whole might be free indeed! When the people petitioned for a national bank, I would use my best endeavors to have their prayers answered, and establish one on national principles to save taxes, and make them the controllers of its ways and means; and when the people petitioned to possess the teritory of or any other contiguous teritory; I would lend the influence of a chief magistrate to grant so reasonable a request, that they might extend the mighty eforts and enterprize of a free preople from the east to the west sea; and make the wilderness blossom as the rose: and when a neighboring realm petitioned [p. 11]
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General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, circa 26 January–7 February 1844
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Footnotes

  1. [66]

    Prior, “English Padlock,” in British Poets, 31:162.

    Prior, Matthew. The Poems of Matthew Prior. Vol. 2. In British Poets: Including Translations. Vol. 31. Chiswick, England: C. Whittingham, 1822.

  2. [67]

    “A pseudo democratic whig president” is a reference to John Tyler. (See Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 588–595.)

    Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

  3. [68]

    JS made a similar statement on 29 January 1844, when the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles approved a motion that JS run for president. (Minutes and Discourse, 29 Jan. 1844.)

  4. [69]

    In ancient Rome, the Senate could check against abuse of power by Roman consuls by calling upon them to account for their actions during their one-year terms. (Abbott, History and Description of Roman Political Institutions, 156, 181–182.)

    Abbott, Frank Frost. A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions. Boston: Ginn, 1901.

  5. [70]

    See Daniel 4:25.

  6. [71]

    Addresses and Messages of the Presidents of the United States, 605.

    The Addresses and Messages of the Presidents of the United States, from Washington to Tyler, Embracing the Executive Proclamations, Recommendations, Protests, and Vetoes, from 1789 to 1843, together with the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States. 4th ed. New York: Edward Walker, 1843.

  7. [72]

    Although New York abolished slavery gradually between 1799 and 1827, until 1841 nonresidents could still bring enslaved persons into the state for up to nine months after arriving. (McManus, “Antislavery Legislation in New York,” 214–215.)

    McManus, Edgar J. “Antislavery Legislation in New York.” Journal of Negro History 46, no. 4 (Oct. 1961): 207–216.

  8. [73]

    In 1837 Van Buren proposed a system of subtreasuries, or government-owned vaults for housing specie, so that the federal government did not have to rely on banks to serve as depositories for federal funds. Under Van Buren’s plan, the federal government would issue bills backed by the specie in its subtreasuries that would function as currency. Congress debated the plan for years. In 1840 Congress established the Independent Treasury, which would protect the federal government’s specie in subtreasuries and from which the government could draw to pay its expenses. Contrary to Van Buren’s initial plan, however, the Independent Treasury would not issue bills. Critics claimed that the Independent Treasury would significantly restrict the country’s money supply. (Murphy, Other People’s Money, 108–109; Brown, “Southern Whigs and the Politics of Statesmanship,” 370–371.)

    Murphy, Sharon Ann. Other People’s Money: How Banking Worked in the Early American Republic. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2017.

    Brown, Thomas. “Southern Whigs and the Politics of Statesmanship, 1833–1841.” Journal of Southern History 46, no. 3 (Aug. 1980): 361–380.

  9. [74]

    Both holding and trading enslaved persons were legal in Washington DC. (Sinha, Slave’s Cause, 341, 490.)

    Sinha, Manisha. The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.

  10. [75]

    See 1 Chronicles 15:15.

  11. [76]

    See Isaiah 61:1.

  12. [77]

    See Isaiah 35:1.

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