In the book Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy: How Men Nearest the Prophet Attached Polygamy to His Name in Order to Justify Their Own Polygamous Crimes.You will find evidence that the Cochranite movement which lasted between about 1816 and 1830 is what brought polygamy into the LDS Church.Started in 1816 by Jacob Cochran, there were over 100 families that were absorbed into our Church when the first missionaries who went into these Cochranites they proved to be very receptive to the Gospel and we converted a great many of them, so much so that the movement disappeared by about 1830.But it was not gone, just growing inside the LDS Church like a fungal rot within a stone.
Joseph Smith was getting wind of the practice and reports and attacks were coming in about Mormons who practiced polygamy.And our dear brother Joseph was dead set against the practice.
In Richard Van Wagoner’s biography of Sidney Rigdon the Authordiscusses how often and adamantly the Prophet Joseph Smith attacked polygamy and those who promoted it:
“The Prophet warned against ‘iniquitous characters [who] say they have authority from Joseph or the First Presidency’ and advising them not to ‘believe anything as coming from us, contrary to the established morals & virtues & scriptural laws...’ The sisters were urged to denounce any man who made polygamous proposals and to ‘shun them as the flying fiery serpent, whether they are Prophets, Seers, or Revelators; Patriarchs, Twelve Apostles, Elders, Priests, Majors, Generals, City Councilors, Aldermen, Marshals, Police, Lord mayors or the Devil, [they] are alike culpable & shall be damned for such evil practices.” (Page 292)
The author of Sidney Rigdon’s biography is also the author of Polygamy: A Mormon History which was the first major overview of the practice, so he knows the subject well.Further down on the page we read this:
“The Prophet’s most pointed denial of plural marriage occurred on 5 October 1843 in instructions pronounced publicly in the streets of Nauvoo. Willard Richards wrote in Smith’s diary that Joseph ‘gave instructions to try those who were preaching, teaching, or practicing the doctrine of plurality of wives...Joseph forbids it and the practice thereof. No man shall have but one wife.’”What really popped out at me was Van Wagoner’s footnote to the above quote, on page 303“When incorporating Smith's journal into the History of the Churce area of Saco, Maine.These, church leaders, under Brigham Young's direction, deleted ten key words from this significant passage and added forty-nine others so that it now reads:"Gave instructions to try those persons who were preaching, teaching, or practicing the doctrine of plurality of wives;for, according to the law, I hold the keys of this power in the last days; for there is never but one on earth at a time on whom the power and its keys are conferred and I have constantly said no man shall have but one wife at a time, unless the Lord directs otherwise." (Emphasis mine)
The Quorums of the Seventy at Kirtland also made it known that polygamists would not be tolerated within that body when they adopted a resolutionwhich stated that they would have no fellowship with any Elder "who is guilty of polygamy."
Joseph Smith’s denunciations of polygamy were frequent and fervent. He considered the practice a plague that must be extinguished or it would eventually lead the church to the very brink of destruction. And some of his best friends were seducing women by claiming the authority to do so came from him.
You will find a great piece on this same issue here. Joseph Smith claimed that the revelation on polygamy concerned “former days, and had no reference to the present time.”
Source: Nauvoo Neighbor, June 19, 1844, Nauvoo City Council minutes; History of the Church 6:441
You will find Fair's convoluted reasoning as to why the Prophet lied publicly about polygamy here. and here
May 25th 1844 Thomas Bullock recorded a sermon given by Joseph Smith to address the dissenters at Nauvoo. This is an excerpt from that sermon:
Another indictment has been got up against me (the polygamy indictment). It appears a holy prophet (William Law) has arisen up, and he has testified against me (causing the polygamy indictment to be brought forth)….God knows, then, that the charges against me are false.I had not been married scarcely five minutes, and made on proclamation of the Gospel, before it was reported that I had seven wives.I mean to live and proclaim the truth as long as I can. This new holy prophet (William Law) has gone to Carthage and swore that I had told him that I was guilty of adultery.This spiritual wifeism! Why, a man dares not speak or wink, for fear of being accused of this….William Law….swears that I have committed adultery.I wish the grand jury would tell me who they (the alleged wives) are – whether it will be a curse or a blessing to me….
A man asked me whether the commandment (revelation) was given that a man may have seven wives; and now the new prophet has charges me with adultery….Wilson Law (William’s brother) also swears that I told him I was guilty of adultery….I have rattled chains before in a dungeon for truth’s sake.I am innocent of all these charges, and you can bear witness of my innocence, for you know me yourselves….What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one.
I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago (when charged with polygamy shortly after his marriage to Emma Hale); and I can prove them all perjurers. (LDS History of the Church 6:410-411).
Elder Charles Wandell upon reading the history published by the church said:
“I notice these interpolations because having been employed (myself) in the Historian’s office at Nauvoo by Doctor Richards, and employed, too, in 1845 in compiling this very autobiography, I know that after Joseph’s death his memoir was “doctored” to suit the new order of things, and this, too, by the direct order of Brigham Young to Doctor Richards and systematically by Richards.” (RLDS History of the Church 4:97)
Brigham Young declared at one point “This revelation has been in my possession many years; and who has known it? None but those who should know it. I keep a patent lock on my desk,and there does not leak out anything that should not.” (Supplement to Millennial Star 15 [1853] : 31; RLDS History of the Church 3:349) That mystery which he “had in secret chambers” was now made public and that mystery was polygamy!
And there are more articles about Joseph Smith fighting polygamy here.
The men nearest to the Prophet attempted and succeeded in attaching Joseph Smith’s name and reputation to polygamy.So great was their success that the LDS Church itself continues to propagate this bold faced falsehood.Like the Priesthood ban this sin would not have been successful without the efforts of Brigham Young.And Brigham along with the men who helped him in this cause did so to justify their polygamous crime before their fellow man, but God was never fooled.
(D&C 49:16) “Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one awife, and they twain shall be boneflesh, and all this that the cearthmight answer the end of its creation;”“Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.” (1835 edition of Doctrine and Covenants section 101.)
Critics and believers alike tend to take in the testimonies of Joseph’s “other wives” to be true because these women had no reason to lie.However, that is a false assumption therefore the outcomes of such assumptions are also false.The reasons they had to lie were primarily to support their beloved institution of plural marriage, their way of life and they had to lie to attach his name to the practice.After all upon close examination of all these various claims you will see that every one of these women stated that the marriage had not been consummated.Why not consummate the marriage if it had been ordained of God?Maybe because they would not lay claim to carnal knowledge of the Prophet when they all had current husbands at the time of making their claims which by the way almost universally takes place during the 1870s, look at the foot notes to official LDS sources, they all point to the 1870s for proof because that’s when the vast majority of claims were made.
And here is an article about how DNA evidence may exonerate Joseph Smith.
And another article in Deseret News,
So DNA evidence supports the fact that none of these plural marriages produced children.But isn’t that the purpose of polygamy according to LDS sources “to raise up the seed of the Lord?”Joseph Smith was honest in his dealings with his fellow man, so why would this issue be an exception?He preached the Gospel of the restoration in its fullness despite devout persecution so why would he deceive so many by not only denying the practice but condemning it and attempting to offer up proof to exonerate himself from the charges that sprang from accusations of polygamy?Proof in the form of his papers accounting for his whereabouts and his personal correspondence which was conveniently lost after his death.
The Cochranite movement was an insidious growth on our Church that caused an infection that rotted us to our core.But it has not washed away the importance of the Gospel itself, that survived and flourished but it will be forever clouded by the fungal rot of polygamy. The Priesthood ban and the practice of polygamy were both instituted by Brigham Young to suit his tastes, not the Lord’s truth.And that is evident amongst the various proofs I have given.Brother Young did a great service to our Church in helping it to survive in the desert but he also did it the two greatest disservices it has ever had to tolerate in its history.
The Church has survived its attacks and will continue to do so but this does not mean that our Church is undeserving of the critiques.When we allow the tastes of men to dictate Gospel principles we stray from the true Gospel course, and when we do that we are bound to screw it up and hopefully our worst sins as a Church are behind us.But whether or not that holds true requires eternal vigilance and the involvement of rank and file members letting our General Authorities know what we are and are not okay with them doing in our name.That is the principle reason most things need to be brought to a vote during General Conference.
