Mormon Attitudes
toward the Civil War—Prophetic and Otherwise
For Latter-day Saints, South Carolina—the
first state to secede and where hostilities commenced—is connected with a
religious statement recorded on Christmas Day 1832 by Joseph Smith, which is
now section 87 of the LDS Church’s Doctrine and Covenants. There has been much
said by Latter-day Saints about this revelation, titled “The Prophecy on War.”
Put simply, Joseph Smith received and recorded the revelation that a grew war would
commence in South Carolina and usher in other wars; that slaves would rise up
against their masters; and then war would become a general state until the
second coming of the Lord. The military and political aspects of war, its
conduct, and the results are the main features of this study.
In December 1832, a political crisis
gripped the United States that nearly culminated in open hostilities between
the federal government and the state of South Carolina. The Tariff of 1828
passed by Congress was severely criticized by politicians and many others, especially
in the Southern states, and soon gained the pejorative label “Tariff of Abominations.”
The South hated tariffs that placed duties on imported goods from Europe, especially
machinery and industrial products from Great Britain. In economic competition with
the North, the South sought cheaper material from Europe, but tariffs increased
the costs. For decades, Southern politicians objected to any type of tariff.
The Tariff of 1828 was specially targeted because of its broad power and
severity. Debate raged throughout the nation over this ussie and was a common
topic in newspapers, the primary news medium of the day.
In Ohio, Joseph Smith and other
Latter-day Saints read the rancorous remarks and heated rhetoric and understood
the anger and division caused by this issue. At this time, the Saints themselves—mostly
Northerners—were facing serious problems in Jackson County, Missouri, the
center of the Millennial promised land of Zion. The old-time settlers and most
of the citizens there were proslavery, whereas the Saints were not. This
difference and its associated problems were brewing in Missouri, a state that
was admitted to the Union in 1821 through a compromise on slavery. In 1832, the
deep-seated turmoil over slavery and the 1828 tariff was a rallying point in
South Carolina, where Senator John C. Calhoun and his fellow Fire-Eaters fomented
bitter emotions to put South Carolina on the verge of rebellion. The political
principle that Southern leaders evoked was nullification: the separate states
had the authority and power to nullify federal law. These Southern radicals
believe the nation was a federal power. The major problem that this interpretation
ignores: under the Constitution the national government was superior. The
doctrine of states’ rights was a notion that eventually drew the South into
armed rebellion against the United States; the root cause was slavery and its
future. (Radcliffe, “The Nullification Crisis,” 1-30)
This political climate weighted on
Joseph Smith’s mind and influenced many of his revelations, causing him to seek
God’s guidance. The Nullification Crisis was the issue that inspired the “Prophecy
on War.” In 1832, when this revelation occurred, there were a dozen or more federal
forts, arsenals, armories, or naval bases in the Southern states. By April
1861, there were only two major forts remaining under federal authority in the
Deep South: Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Florida, and Fort Sumter in Charleston
Harbor, South Carolina. (There was also Fort Monroe and Norfolk Naval Yard in
Virginia; Fort Monroe remained under federal control during the entire Civil
War. See McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 263)
Once hostilities commenced in April
1861, many Saints in Utah Territory had already developed negative attitudes
toward the United Sates because they had been persecuted and expelled from
several states. The recent intervention of the federal army of Utah in 1857 and
its occupation at Camp Floyd (later Fort Crittenden) caused enormous tensions among
Mormons and their leaders. Condemning and castigating the United States and its
elected officials become a routine and constant motif in LDS sermons and public
forums. “The Curse of God will be upon the Nation and they will have Enough of
it,” proclaimed the apostle and future church president Wilford Woodruff: “They[
the United States] have persecuted the Saints of God and the Rulers would do
nothing for us but all they Could against us and they will now get their pay
for it.” (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, April 28, 1861, 5:570) Seeing the
coming cataclysm. Brigham Young offered this commentary in February 1861 as the
secession crisis was ripping the nation apart: “There is no union in the North
or in the South. The nation must crumble to nothing.” (Brigham Yong Office
Journal, February 2, 1861, 3:1742)
The paradox that manifested in Mormon
thought and attitudes with the advent of the Civil War was this: the Saints
remained loyal to the US Constitution, which they esteemed as a divine document;
they also embraced true American values of democracy and freedoms. But they generally
wanted retribution again their fellow Americans for their sins and for past
treatment of the Mormons. it was a complex set of attitudes: some were genuine
and pure, but many Saints were caught up in the rhetoric of divine vengeance
and were nearly hysterical about the judgments unleashed by the war. One
historian expressed this intricate attitude in these terms:
For Mormons, the war represented a
fulfillment of prophecy and the just vengeance of God upon a nation that
spurned the “innocent who [had] cried for redress.” Accordingly, Latter-day
Saints have remained neutral in the dispute and at times even “seemed pleased
with the news of secession and war.” In some regards, the war even seemed to
benefit the Saints, providing them with a few years of long-desired refuge. Yet
in spite of all this, they were Americans, and they wept over the painful
effects of the Civil War. (See Brett D. Dowdle, “What Means This Carnage?,” in
ed., Civil War Saints, 126)
It is easy to become overwhelmed and
influenced by the caustic language and rhetoric often spoken by LDS leaders and
ordinary Mormons against the United States and the endless repetition of tales
of persecution at the hands of their fellow citizens. The Mormons preached divine
vengeance and holy justification for years, but they did little to enact or
ensure it. (Perhaps the only time action equaled rhetoric was the Mormon Meadows
Massacre of 1857) (Sherman L. Fleek and Robert C. Freeman, The Mormon
Military Experience: 1838 to the Cold War [Studies in Civil-Military
Relations; Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 2023], 119-22)
Further
Reading:
Resources on Joseph Smith's Prophecies
