�鶹��ý

March 14, 1844

Minute books of the Council of Fifty. Joseph Smith Papers Project, © by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.josephsmithpapers.org

In March 1844, just months before his death, Joseph Smith organized the Council of Fifty, or, as it was also called, the Kingdom of God.[1] This council was established for a variety of purposes, including to assist Joseph Smith in his presidential campaign, to explore options for the westward expansion of the Saints, and to deliberate how and where to establish a theocratic (or “theodemocratic”[2]) political government that would protect the religious rights of the Latter-day Saints and others and prepare the world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. As its name implies, the council was composed of about fifty men, including some non-Latter-day Saints. It met from March 1844 to January 1846 and then only intermittently through the 1840s, the 1860s, and finally the 1880s.[3]

One of the earliest matters addressed by the Council of Fifty was what to call this new administrative body. On March 14, 1844, the group met “all day” and continued their previous discussions. On this same day “the name of the council was discussed, and the Lord was pleased to give” a revelation clarifying what the Council was to call itself—“the Kingdom of God and his laws, with the keys and power thereof, and judgement in the hands of his servants, Ahman Christ.” Although perhaps long, the name left no ambiguity as to the nature of the Council and its function: to act as “the political arm or government of the Kingdom [of God] to implement the full measure of its designs and purposes.”[4] After the name was proposed to the Council, “a vote taken whether the members would adopt that as their name. The vote was unanimous in the affirmative.” As a result, a feeling of “joy and gratitude” prevailed throughout the members of the Council, and “every heart was satisfied.”[5]

❋ ❋ ❋

Verily, thus saith the Lord: this is the name by which you shall be called—the Kingdom of God and his laws, with the keys and power thereof, and judgement in the hands of his servants, Ahman Christ.

Notes

[1] JSP, CFM:20.

[2] Joseph Smith and other members of the Council of Fifty used both terms to describe the political system which they were attempting to establish (e.g., JSP, CFM:40, 88, 92–94; “The Globe,” Times and Seasons 5, no. 8 [April 15, 1844]: 510). As defined by the Council, a theodemocracy is where “God and the people hold the power to conduct the affairs of men in righteousness.” “The Globe,” 510. See further Patrick Q. Mason, “God and the People: Theodemocracy in Nineteenth-Century Mormonism,” Journal of Church and State 53, no. 3 (Summer 2011): 349–75; “God and the People Reconsidered: Further Reflections on Theodemocracy in Early Mormonism,” in The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History, ed. Matthew J. Grow and R. Eric Smith (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 31–42.

[3] For an overview of the Council of Fifty and its activities, see JSP, CFM:xxiii–xlv. See also the various perspectives offered in the accessible volume edited by Grow and Smith, The Council of Fifty. For past studies on the Council of Fifty, see Klaus J. Hansen, Quest for Empire: The Political Kingdom of God and the Council of Fifty in Mormon History (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1967); 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): 253–80; D. Michael Quinn, “The Council of Fifty and Its Members, 1844 to 1945,” BYU Studies 20, no. 2 (Winter 1980): 163–97; Jedediah S. Rogers, ed., The Council of Fifty: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2014).

[4] Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Stephen H. Smoot, “Wilford Woodruff’s 1897 Testimony,” in Banner of the Gospel: Wilford Woodruff, ed. Alexander L. Baugh and Susan Easton Black (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 343–48, quote at 345.

[5] JSP, CFM:48.