Criticism of Mormonism/Books/One Nation Under Gods/Notable omissions


Rewording secondary sources
A work by author: Richard Abanes

Notable omissions

Curiously, the following items were not included in this "History of the Mormon Church."

Page One Nation Under Gods

166

 The book fails to mention how General Lucas ordered Alexander Doniphan to execute Joseph Smith and other Church leaders at Far West, and how Doniphan refused to do so because he considered it "cold blooded murder."

211
  • There is no mention at all of well-known anti-Mormon Thomas Sharp, owner of the Warsaw Signal, and how the paper played a major role leading up to Joseph's death. The author simply mentions Sharp's articles. Sharp wrote the following on 11 June 1844:

War and extermination is inevitable! Citizens ARISE, ONE and ALL!!!—Can you stand by, and suffer such INFERNAL DEVILS! to ROB men of their property and RIGHTS, without avenging them. We have no time for comment, every man will make his own. LET IT BE MADE WITH POWDER AND BALL!!!

On July 10, Sharp wrote:

Joe and Hiram [sic] Smith, at the time their lives were taken, were in the custody of the officers of the law; and it is asked by those who condemn the act, why the law was not first allowed to take its course before violence was resorted to? We answer that the course of law in the case of these wretches would have been a mere mockery; and such was the conviction of every sensible man.

  • Sharp would also say that the murder of the Smiths was "a summary execution," and that "the anti-Mormons had agreed in early June to exterminate the Mormon leaders."[1]
  • How likely is it that the Nauvoo Signal will offer accurate information about the Saints? Would Abanes appeal to articles in Der Sturmer about the Jews?
  • See also: Crime and violence in Nauvoo

232
  • Additional context for Brigham's statement:

One of the first and plainest principles to be believed and practised is to put ourselves and all we have into the kingdom of God, and then be dictated by the Lord and his servants. Is there any danger? Some are ready [p.176] to say, "Yes, we are afraid to trust ourselves and our means here and there....

Can we feed and clothe ourselves? Yes, we can, as well as any people on the earth. We have a goodly share of the genius, talent, and ability of the world; it is combined in the Elders of this Church and in their families. And if the Gentiles wish to see a few tricks, we have "Mormons" that can perform them. We have the meanest devils on the earth in our midst, and we intend to keep them, for we have use for them; and if the Devil does not look sharp, we will cheat him out of them at the last, for they will reform and go to heaven with us.

We have already showed the invading army a few tricks; and I told Captain Van Vliet that if they persisted in making war upon us, I should share in their supplies. The boys would ride among the enemy's tents; and one of their captains ran into Colonel Alexander's tent one night, saying, "Why, Colonel, I'll be damned if the Mormons won't be riding into your tent, if you don't look out....

But look out, pertaining to taking care of and sustaining ourselves, that the children of this world are not smarter than the children of light. I say that they shall not be; for we will best them in every good thing, the Lord and the brethren being our helpers.

237

Brigham actually said:

We must have those amongst us who will steal our fence poles, who will go and steal hay from their neighbor's hay stack, or go into his corn field to steal corn, and leave the fence down; nearly every ax that is dropped in the kanyon must be picked up by them, and the scores of lost watches, gold rings, breast pins, &c., must get into their hands, though they will not wear them in your sight. It is essentially necessary to have such characters here.

After we had given the brethren such a scouring two or three months ago, about returning lost property when found, one or two men brought in two or three rusty nails of no value, which they had picked up; this was tantamount to saying to brother Sprague, "If we had found your purse, or if we had found Brigham's purse, we would see you, in hell before we would return it." We wish to impress upon you the necessity of your bringing the ax you find, the hay fork, or any other lost property which you find, to the person who is appointed to take charge of such property, that the owners may again possess it. But if you should pick up a piece of rotten wood, and bring it to brother Brigham, or Dr. Sprague, with a show of honesty, and in derision of the counsel you have received, it would be like saying, "If we could find or steal your purses, you should never see them again. We are poor, miserable devils, and mean to live here by stealing from the Saints, and you cannot help yourselves."

Live here then, you poor, miserable curses, until the time of retribution, when your heads will have to be severed from your bodies. Just let the Lord Almighty say, "Lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet," and the time of thieves is short in this community. What do you suppose they would say in old Massachusetts, should they hear that the Latter-day Saints had received a revelation or commandment to lay "judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet?" What would they say in old Connecticut? They would raise a universal howl of, "How wicked those Mormons are; they are killing the evil doers who are among them; why I hear that they kill the wicked away up yonder in Utah." They do not kill anybody down there, do they?

As for the inhabitants of the earth, who know anything about the "Mormons," having power to utter worse epithets against us than they do, they have to get more knowledge in order to do it; and as for those enemies who have been in our midst, feeling any worse than they do, they have first to know more; they are as full of bad feeling now as they can hold without bursting. What do I care for the wrath of man? No more than I do for the chickens that run in my dooryard. I am here to teach the ways of the Lord, and lead men to life everlasting, but if they have not a mind to go there, I wish them to keep out of my path.(emphasis added)

238
  • Los Angeles Star reported that Indians had supposedly killed Parrish and two others; it noted too that "rumor had it [that Parrish]...'had a difficulty with the authorities about removing property which he had previously 'consecrated' to the church.'"[2] No guilty parties were ever found.[3]
  • The only "leader" accused was Parrish's bishop.[4] If a local leader did commit an act of murder, this proves nothing about Brigham Young or other general leaders ordering it, or that this is a representative example of how Utah Mormons dealt with apostates.

241
  • Hosea Stout's diary reads only:
Saturday 27 Feb. 1858: "This evening several persons disguised as Indians entered Henry Jones' house and dragged him out of bed with a whore and castrated him by a square & close amputation."
  • Thus, this provides no evidence regarding Stout's murder, as the citation might lead us to expect.
  • Jones was later killed, and the anti-Mormon newspaper Valley Tan printed an affidavit from Nathaniel Case claiming that Jones' bishop had plotted his death with several other members.[5] If true, Jones was not attacked for trying to marry someone, but for adultery with a prostitute. Reportedly, the murder of Jones and his mother sprang from accusations of incest.[6]
  • There is no evidence linking the attack on Jones to anyone but local members. Joseph Hancock was found guilty of second degree murder in 1890.[7]
  • Critics try to use this as an example of a "tip of the iceberg," problem, implying that many such extra-legal castrations occurred in Utah, and that the Church or its doctrines or leaders are somehow to blame. Such a characterization is unfair.
  • Given that in the 19th century there was a common tendency among non-Mormons for "frontier justice" to be carried out extra-legally, especially in the case of sexual crimes, its occurrence in areas far from central Church control on one or two occasions is not particularly surprising.

531

 We are told that Isaac McWithy was "brought to trial before the church's High Council for insolence" after he "refused to sell his land to Joseph for $3000."

The book fails to mention:

  • The High Council court was to "investigate the charges of 'A want of benevolence to the poor, and charity to the Church,' which [Joseph] had previously preferred against Brother Preserved Harris and Elder Isaac McWithy.
  • Note that Joseph said "We offered him..."—this was not a personal transaction with Joseph.
  • History of the Church states: "In the pleas of the Councilors, in the case of Elder McWithy, they decided that the charges had been fully sustained; after which, I spoke in my turn as accuser, and stated that I called on the accused, in company with President Oliver Cowdery, for money to send up to Zion, but could get none; afterwards saw him, and asked him if he would sell his farm. He at first seemed willing, and wished to build up Zion. He pleaded excuse in consequence of his liberality to the poor. We offered him three thousand dollars for his farm, would give him four or five hundred dollars to take him to Zion, and settle him there, and an obligation for the remainder, with good security and interest. He went and told Father Lyon that we demanded all his property, and so we lost four or five hundred dollars; because the accused told him [Lyon] such a story, [that] he calculated to keep it [the aforesaid four or five hundred dollars] himself."

Endnotes

  1. [note]  Dallin H. Oaks and Marvin S. Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, the Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1979), 22, citing Warsaw Signal (July 10 & July 31, 1844). ISBN 025200762X.
  2. [note]  Edward Leo Lyman, San Bernadino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996), 342–343.
  3. [note] Thomas G. Alexander, "Wilford Woodruff and the Mormon Reformation of 1855-57," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 25 no. 2 (Summer 1992), 27–28.
  4. [note] Lyman, 343 n. 37.

Further reading

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