W.L. Crowe (1866-1924) was a member of the Church of God Abrahamic Faith. In his 1902 book, The Mormon Waterloo, he attempted to demonstrate that what is now D&C 87, the so-called “Civil War Prophecy,” was not truly prophetic. Further, he is rather open to the theory that the prophecy was a forgery as it was published and made available to the public in 1851(which is false; here it is in Revelation Book 1 and Revelation Book 2). Finally, he believes (mistakenly) that the Civil War would be the same war that would result in “war being poured upon all nations”:
In our examination of this alleged prophecy it is not necessary to
notice famines, earthquakes, thunder and lightning and Indian uprising, such
as had been before this time, and have been ever since; so we will simply
notice the slave trouble, and the way that was to begin at South Carolina, as
these are all the points in this “prophecy” that can be regarded as foretelling
anything.
Barnes’ U.S. History, p. 50, tells us that slavery was first
introduced into the U.S. in 1619, when twenty negroes were sold by a Dutch
trader to the colonists. “From this circumstance, small as it seemed at the
time,” says the historian, “the most momentous consequences ensued. Consequences
that long after rent the Republic with strife, and moistened its soil with
blood.”
Thus for 223 years before Smith’s prophecy the slavery question
had been preparing the way for a division between the North and South.
In the same school history, pp. 172, 173, on the “Missouri
Compromise,” we read of the bitter discussions of 1821 (eleven years before
Smith’s “prophecy”), as to whether Missouri should be a free or slave state,
and whether slavery should be prohibited in all territories west of the Mississippi
river and north of parallel 36 degrees 30 minutes, the southern boundary of Missouri.
As another example of how present and past events cast their
shadows about Smith in 1832, we refer the reader to what is known as the “Nullification
Act” of that year.
See Student’s Encycl. p. 579, how, in 1828, Jackson was elected
President of the United States and Calhoun Vice President. How Jackson stood
for the federal union, and Calhoun for state rights. IN 1830, at a banquet, the
President gave his famous toast: “The federal union—it must be preserved;” to
which Calhoun replied: “Liberty is dearer than union.”
“The protective tariff bill passed in 1832 was very distasteful to
South Carolina, and she declared the law unconstitutional within her
boundaries. This became known as the ‘Nullification Act.’”
See also Life of Jackson, by J.S. Jenkins, p. 263, where we learn
that the convention assembled in South Carolina in 1832 declared the acts of
1828 and 1832, in reference to certain tariffs and imposes, to be
unconstitutional, and that attempts to enforce them otherwise than thru civil
tribunals would be resisted by the citizens of South Carolina, and would be
deemed inconsistent with longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union: and
that the people of said state would hold themselves absolved from all
obligations to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people
of other states; and would forthwith proceed to establish an independent
government, and do all the acts that sovereign states have a right to do.
Now, if Smith did in this same year, 1832, make such a prediction
as the above, was it wonderful? When South Carolina had threatened to secede
from the Union that same year, was it a marvelous prophecy to predict a
revolution beginning with that state?
And yet, if Smith ever made such a prophecy, it was not published
to the world till after he had been dead seven years and nineteen years after
Smith is said to have made it! In 1851, when this “prophecy” was first
published, it required no prophet to predict war between the North and South,
beginning at South Carolina. But the fact of waiting nineteen years before
publishing such an important prophecy, shows, either that Smith was afraid it
might not come to pass, so waited awhile to watch developments, or else that it
was a forgery of 1851 that Smith had nothing to do with.
As to war being poured out upon all nations, beginning with South
Carolina, this has failed of fulfilment. We think that the blowing up of the
Maine would be a more probable starting point for that last war that is to
involve all nations. (W.L.
Crowe, The Mormon Waterloo: Being a Condensed and Classified Array of
Testimony and Arguments Against the False Prophet, Joseph Smith, his Works, and
his Church System and Doctrines: Based upon Standard History, Science, the
Bible and Smith Against Himself [St. Paul, Nebr.: 1902], 21-23, emphasis in
bold added)
For a listing of Joseph's Smith's prophecies, including articles discussing D&C 87, see:
