Joseph Smith for President

By the election year of 1844, Joseph Smith, the controversial founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had amassed a national following of some 25,000 believers. Nearly half of them lived in the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, where Smith was not only their religious leader but
also the mayor and the commander-in-chief of a militia of some 2,500 men. In less than twenty years, Smith had helped transform the American religious landscape and grown his own political power substantially. Yet the standing of the Mormon people in American society remained unstable. Unable to
garner federal protection, and having failed to win the support of former president Martin Van Buren or any of the other candidates in the race, Smith decided to take matters into his own hands, launching his own bid for the presidency. While many scoffed at the notion that Smith could come anywhere
close to the White House, others regarded his run--and his religion--as a threat to the stability of the young nation. Hounded by mobs throughout the campaign, Smith was ultimately killed by one--the first presidential candidate to be assassinated.

Though Joseph Smith's run for president is now best remembered--when it is remembered at all--for its gruesome end, the renegade campaign was revolutionary. Smith called for the total abolition of slavery, the closure of the country's penitentiaries, and the reestablishment of a national bank to
stabilize the economy. But Smith's most important proposal was for an expansion of protections for religious minorities. At a time when the Bill of Rights did not apply to individual states, Smith sought to empower the federal government to protect minorities when states failed to do so.

Spencer W. McBride tells the story of Joseph Smith's quixotic but consequential run for the White House and shows how his calls for religious freedom helped to shape the American political system we know today.

"In 1844, Joseph Smith, the controversial founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had amassed a national following of some 25,000 believers-and a militia of some 2,500 men. In this year, his priority was protecting the lives and civil rights of his people. Having failed to win the support of any of the presidential contenders for these efforts, Smith launched his own renegade campaign for the White House, one that would end with his assassination at the hands of an angry mob. Smith ran on a platform that called for the total abolition of slavery, the closure of the country's penitentiaries, the reestablishment of a national bank to stabilize the economy, and most importantly an expansion of protections for religious minorities. Spencer W. McBride tells the story of Smith's quixotic but consequential run for the White House and shows how his calls for religious freedom helped to shape the American political system we know today"--

"In Spencer McBride's skilled hands, the story of Joseph Smith's quixotic 1844 presidential campaign reveals new aspects of the radically circumscribed nature of liberty in the American Republic. This marvelous volume combines a compelling history of the early LDS Church with a pointed critique of
the myth of American religious freedom." -- Amy S. Greenberg, author of Lady First: The World of First Lady Sarah Polk

"America has had no shortage of quixotic presidential candidates who, in retrospect, reflect broader cultural anxieties. But perhaps no campaign appeared as impractical or unlikely as the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith's in 1844. In this meticulously detailed and clearly written book, Spencer McBride
has dissected this seemingly outlandish episode in order to reveal wider lessons about the American culture that made it possible as well as the political tradition that connects it to today." -- Benjamin E. Park, author of Kingdom of Nauvoo

"Spencer McBride obliges us to see Joseph Smith in a stark new light: not merely as a prophet who was assassinated, but as a presidential candidate whose campaign could not be separated from the force of religious persecution. From this illuminating, deeply researched account emerges a picture of
the dark underbelly of states' rights abuses and mob violence that shaped the election of 1844. It's a story well-suited to our own intolerant times." -- Nancy Isenberg, author of White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

"Joseph Smith for President takes readers inside one of the most unlikely presidential campaigns in American history. Spencer McBride shows us Joseph Smith parading on the shoulders of his followers, issuing an anti-slavery platform, and asking to be put at the head of a 100,000-man army. This is an
eloquent and richly detailed portrait of the political conflict between the early Latter-day Saints and their political opponents." -- John Turner, author of Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet