Review
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Title: Council of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–January 1846
Editors: Matthew J. Grow, Ronald K. Esplin, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Gerritt J. Dirkmaat, and Jeffrey D. Mahas
Publisher: Church Historians Press
Genre: Documentary History
Year Published: 2016
Number of Pages: 688 + Four Indices (70+ of illustrations)
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN10: n/a
ISBN13: 978-1-62972-242-9
Price: $59.95
Reviewed by Christian N. K. Anderson for the Association for Mormon Letters
Early Mormonism and Contemporary Mormonism: A Tense Conversation
Of all the untapped treasures from the early LDS church in the First Presidency’s private vault, the Council of Fifty Minutes are arguably the most anticipated by historians. Several lengthy treatments of the Council of Fifty have already been written, relying on secondary sources. (See especially Klaus J. Hansen, Quest for Empire: The Political Kingdom of God and the Council of Fifty in Mormon History (Michigan State University Press, 1967); D. Michael Quinn, “The Council of Fifty and Its Members, 1844 to 1945, BYU Studies 20, no. 2 (Winter 1980): 163-197; Andrew F. Ehat, “‘It Seems Like Heaven Began on Earth’: Joseph Smith and the Constitution of the Kingdom of God,” BYU Studies 20, no. 3 (Spring 1980): 253-280; and Jedediah S. Rogers, The Council of Fifty: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2014), all of which are referenced though not engaged directly in this volume. Even at one remove, they echoed a story that is among the most intense to come from the turbulent Nauvoo period–which makes the Church History Department’s decision to not only make the primary documents available to scholars, but to publish complete transcripts on the open market, frankly astounding. It is a remarkable step, not just towards transparency, but to a new model of informed faith.
The Dangerous Materials
As revealed in the minutes, mob violence and government indifference had left early Church leadership cynical and radicalized by early 1844. So when a missionary came up with the wild idea of allying with and/or converting all the Indians in the Wisconsin region and leading them to a better life in what was then the independent country of Texas, the apostles didn’t bat an eye. In fact, with Joseph Smith’s typical inability to think small, he decided that playing a pivotal role in the fate of the Mormons, Great Lakes Native Americans, and Texans just wasn’t thinking big enough. In a series of meetings with his best leaders over the next four months, they formulated a plan to form an independent “theodemocratic” government, consisting of people of all races and religions, outside the pernicious influence of the United States. It would be ruled by Joseph in “his triune function as Prophet, Priest and King,” (p. 220) with a perfect constitution (as distinct from the U.S, Constitution, which, as W. W. Phelps said in the Apr 11, 1844, meeting, contained “a few pearls but a tremendous sight of chaff,” p. 72) which they expected to be able to write in just two days. As Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has it, these were men with “their heads in stars and their boots in the prairie mud” (Introduction to A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism. Alfred A. Knopf, 2017).
Things did not calm down after Joseph’s martyrdom. Though the council didn’t meet for nine months, the first three meetings of Brigham Young’s regime became progressively more heated, with general agreement that the ultimate goal was to form a joint war-party with Native Americans (“cousin Lemuel,” as Young affectionately, if not respectfully, referred to them on several occasions) for the purpose of massacring the citizens of Illinois and possibly further. Amasa Lyman thundered that he cared only for Church members, and “dont care a damn for the rest. They may go to hell with their laws and all belonging to them.” (Mar 18, 1845, p. 337)
Young, despite his contemporary reputation as an iron-jawed hothead, is actually quite moderate in the minutes, and the only one who actually seems to be thinking of what such a small group of impoverished politically vulnerable people could accomplish in practical terms. In addition to checking the bloodthirstiness and being the only one willing to listen to Almon Babbitt’s legal advice, he is preoccupied reclaiming the schismatics led away by Lyman Wight, Sidney Rigdon, and James Emmett. It was fascinating to see him stumble upon the need for members to receive their endowments before departing into the wilderness as an argument to reclaim members. While this may have helped bring some back to the fold, it also trapped him into continuing construction on the temple against the advice of sympathetic non-Mormons. Hostile neighbors took it as proof Mormons were lying about their plans to leave, and it contributed to the escalating violence in Nauvoo.
Handling Dangerous Materials
The contempt for the founding documents of the United States and the open rebellion of the early leaders contrasts sharply with the Americanism of the contemporary Church and is sure to cause some cognitive dissonance for many readers.
The early Church leaders themselves were fully aware of the incendiary nature of these meetings, and so these minutes have been treated with extreme caution since the very beginning. Members were ordered to keep the proceedings secret on pain of beheading. William Clayton was ordered at least four times to burn his minutes, and this eventually became a standing order. It appears that even Brigham Young was not aware that Clayton privately interpreted these orders as referring only to the loose sheets of shorthand minutes, but not the longhand fair copy he kept in a bound book (which eventually ran to three small volumes). When Joseph Smith was arrested, he immediately called Clayton and asked him to either destroy “or else bury” the books; Clayton elected to bury them, and only for nine days. He continued to keep notes for the rest of the Nauvoo period (in fact, keeping them with much more detail under Brigham Young than under Joseph Smith, as measured by transcript length), and carried them across the plains. They were again buried on Wilford Woodruff’s property during the Utah War (where they received some water damage), and were consulted briefly in 1981 by Gordon B. Hinckley at the height of the Hoffman forgeries. So it should come as no surprise that a great deal of thought and care has gone into their public release.
The transcripts themselves are wrapped between many essays of excellent scholarship providing context, explanation, hundreds of short biographies, and a fair assessment of relevant literature. Typical of what you expect from faithful history, the editors try to desensationalize the facts, but do not cover them up. In the introduction to the meetings where violence was most openly plotted, they state: “While council members did not advocate immediate vengeance against their enemies, their anger and sense of loss led to intemperate remarks and threats, and they appear to have generally agreed that at some future point violence might be divinely condoned or required. In addition, Young said that the Latter-day Saints should no longer send missionaries to the Gentiles.” (p. 296) I find this to be a reasonable statement, charitable to both the historical figures and distressed modern readers.
Similarly, Young later based much of his claim to authority on a charge delivered by Joseph Smith to the apostles on 25 March 1844, but which Clayton did not record in any detail. The editors carefully state: “There is no evidence for any anointing or endowing of authority on the quorum of the 12”. (p. 380 n598) They also tacitly admit that Hinckley could find no evidence in the original records; while they present several second-hand quotes claiming apostolic succession in the introduction to the 25 March 1844 (and footnotes 148, 150, and 163), these call attention to the lacuna rather than concealing it. In discussing charges of horse-thievery by the Morleys and counterfeiting by Brigham Young, the editors also carefully present evidence both for and against without taking sides.
The Two Voices
There is clearly a dialogue happening in this volume between the volatile primary historical sources and a modern conservative Church trying to face these facts in a way that does justice to both history and the lay membership. While some will no doubt take issue with the apologetic aspects of the commentary, I think it would be irresponsible to publish the inflammatory contents of these minutes without providing models for how to remain a faithful believer in light of the new information.
That said, the commentary is worryingly careful not to borrow trouble at times. When Orson Hyde, apropos of nothing, starts delivering his theory that Africans were neutrals in the War in Heaven (22 March 1845), the footnote points out three places where Brigham Young disavowed this theory, but doesn’t mention any of BY’s subsequent racism, nor the persistence of this idea in semi-official statements up to 1978. Similarly, when discussing publishing Lucy Mack Smith’s biography, the editors only say that it was eventually published in England, but not that Young ordered all copies burned. However, I think the apologists had enough on their plate without tackling race and the decades of Pratt-Young rivalry as well.
All in all, I believe it is a significant step forward that there is now open agreement on what happened in these secret meetings, and that an acceptable orthodox interpretation to those events exists. Some may interpret that information in a way that triggers a faith transition, but I don’t think it should be the job of the Church History Department to push people in that direction. The editors are to be thoroughly commended for releasing these Minutes, and also for the high level of scholarship and sensitivity with which they do so.