In "History of Joseph Smith," Deseret News 6, no. 29 (September 24, 1856): 1, we have an account of a prophecy from Joseph Smith concerning the then-future fate of Stephen A. Douglas:
[May
18, 1843] The following brief account is from the journal of William Clayton,
who was present:—
"Dined
with Judge Stephen A. Douglass, who is presiding at court. After dinner Judge
Douglass requested President Joseph to give him a history of the Missouri
persecution, which he did in a very minute manner for about three hours; he
also gave a relation of his journey to Washington city, and his application in
behalf of the Saints to Mr. Van Buren, the President of the United States, for
redress, and Mr. Van Buren's pusillanimous reply, 'Gentlemen, your cause is
just, but I can do nothing for you;' and the cold unfeeling manner in which he
was treated by most of the senators and representatives in relation to the
subject: Clay saying, 'You had better go to Oregon,' Calhoun shaking his head
solemnly, saying, 'It's a nice question, a critical question, but it will not
do to agitate it.'
The
judge listened with the greatest attention, and then spoke warmly in
depreciation of the conduct, of Governor Boggs and the authorities of Missouri,
who had taken part in the extermination, and said that any people that would do
as the mobs of Missouri have done, ought to be brought to judgment, they ought
to be punished.
President
Smith, in concluding his remarks, said, that if the government which received
into its coffers the money of citizens for its public lands, while its
officials are rolling in luxury at the expense of its public treasury, cannot
protect such citizens in their lives and property, it is an old granny anyhow,
and I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, that unless the United
States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the State of Missouri
and punish the crimes committed by her officers, that in a few years the
government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much
as a potsherd left, for their wickedness in permitting the murder of men, women
and children, and the wholesale plunder and extermination of thousands of her
citizens to go unpunished; thereby perpetrating a foul and corroding blot upon
the fair fate of this great republic, the very thought of which would have
caused the high minded and patriotic framers of the Constitution of the United
states to hide their faces with shame. Judge you will aspire to the Presidency
of the United States, and if ever you turn your hand against me or the Latter
Day Saints, you will feel the weight of the hand of the Almighty upon you; and
you will live to see and know that I have testified the truth to you, for the
conversation of this day will stick to you through life.
He
appears very friendly and acknowledged the truth and propriety of President
Smith's remarks."
In Brigham
Young’s letter to Stephen A. Douglas, May 2, 1861, Brigham would make reference to a prediction Joseph offered to Douglas concerning his future:
Sir:
It
would seem that the States are about to "apply the knife and cut out the
loathsome ulcer." (your Springfield speech in 1857) Does not the
"ulcer" prove to be located in a different part of the body-politic
and to be more deeply seated than you was then aware of? Alas for human
boasting, and the pride of a great Nation in its wickedness, how soon the
withering touch of the Almighty can deplete an "overflowing
treasury," and turn State against State in fratricidal slaughter! And do
you think that your feeble influence can stay the decreed and hastening
downfall of our Republic? Silly demagogue, it can no more do so than it could
compass the extermination of those the Lord has chosen to bless.
Do
you not begin to realize that the prediction of the Prophet Joseph Smith,
personally delivered to you, has been and is being literally fulfilled upon
your head?
Why
have you barked with the dogs, except to prove that you were a dog with them?
Douglas would die of typhoid
fever on June 3, 1861. In Brigham
Young Office Journal, June 12, 1861,
Brigham and his brother Phinehas
had
some conver-sation about the death of Stephen A. Douglas the President remarked
he should be President in the lower world and Tom Benton should be his first
counsellor.
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