Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011
Volume 14 Number 1 Article 16
2002
Historical Paradigms in Conflict: The Nauvoo Period Revisited
Glen M. Cooper
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BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Cooper, Glen M. (2002) "Historical Paradigms in Conflict: The Nauvoo Period Revisited," Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011: Vol. 14 : No. 1 , Article 16. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol14/iss1/16
This Mormon Studies is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011 by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Title Historical Paradigms in Conflict: The Nauvoo Period Revisited
Author(s) Glen M. Cooper
Reference FARMS Review of Books 14/1–2 (2002): 295–313.
ISSN 1099-9450 (print), 2168-3123 (online)
Abstract Review of Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois (1995), edited by John E. Hallwas and Roger D. Launius. HISTORICAL PARADIGMS IN CONFLICT: THE NAUVOO PERIOD REVISITED
Glen M. Cooper
ightly did Joseph Smith S.IY "No man knows my history," a state R ment that l:awll Brodie co nsi dered di si ngenuous. Joseph's obser vation, however, ex presses a fundamen tal tr uth: It is di ffi c ult to reconstruct "what actually happened" and why so-a nd-so did such and-slich. [n principle, these sallle diffi culties face scho la rs trying to write the history of any person. Joseph Smith was not special in this regard. Si nce there exists more documentary material about his life than abOllt most peoplc, contrad ictory statements and perspectives arc inevitable. In addition, the controversy that attended him and his deeds and the conflicting testimonies about him leave us to discern the truth. CII/flIres ill COIl}lict, however useful it may be as a coll ec ti on of source documents, is ve ry poor as a work of scholarship. The historical commentary th at accompanies each primary source selec lion manifests prejudice, ge neraliza tion, poor evaluation, and ten dentious m isreadings of those sources. One editorial commentary is in fact so age nd ~H l riV('n that one even suspects that the choice of pri mary docuTlle nt s is not representative. Why begi n a rev iew of a book about Na uvoo \vi th mention of Joseph Smith? Because J-i allwas and La unius treat him as the central -. ------.,------:-l i Rev iew of John E. HalJwas and Roger O. Launi us, eds. Cultures it! I Conflict A Docnmen'",y History of ,I" Mannon War in Illinois. Logan, Utah: Utah State Unive rsity, 1995. x + 369 pp., with bibliographic notes and index. $22.95, paperback; $39.45, hardback. ------296 • FARMS REV IEW 0 1' BOOKS 14/ 1-2 (2002) figure in the Na u voo "passion play." It is primarily Joseph Smith's motives and m ind that such historians allem pt to divine. Elden Wat son, the author of a review of Cultures ill COllflict that appeared in an earl ie r issue of FARMS Review of Rooks, I no tes that the portrait of Joseph Smith that Hall was and Liluni us present i.~ far fro m tlatteri ng: Watson makes a case that the book is anli-Mormon because of its at tack on the character of Joseph Smith. While [ acknowledge that the portrait of Joseph Smit h is uncomplimentary, I am not concerned wi th the status of th is book as anti -Mormon. CII{lIm'$ ill COllflict is presented as a serious work o f historical scholarship, and I evaluate it against standards app ropriate fo r such a book.! It is u nfortunate, however, that reviewing th is book req uires an exam ination of sOl11e rudimentary h isto riographical pri nciples. Furthermore, since J sus pect that many who consider themselves La tter-day Sa ints would fi nd nothing reprehensible in Hall was and Lau ni us's portrait of Joseph Smith, to call the book "anti-Mormon" is both inaccurate and beside the point. In preparing the present essay, [ have h;ld aCcess to three previous reviews. Since each review fa ils in one or more ways to do justice to this book, I feel compelled to offer my own imalysis in till' form of a review essay. Several critical issues require fu rther dcvdopment than is possible within the dimensions of an ordina ry review. Mine was mostly written before I n:,ld the olhcrs.·\ I shall cOlllment o n the ear li er reviews as nccessa ry. The fi rst chronologicall y. by Glen M. Leon,lrd, while making ,I few useful but diplom atic observat ions, ultimately
I. Eldt"1l Watsoll, " 'vi,'w of C"/I",,,, ill C.JIlf/i(l; A Ih'(WII('II/rIfJ' 1-Ii>l 4. Glen M. Lc"n~rJ. review of Cllitur" j ill C'mf/io. by John E. H all w,, ~ ;tnd Roger tl Launius. BI'U SlIIdirs 36/2 ( 1')9(,- ':17): 235-40. 5. \'liaIson . rl'vi<'w of CUllllrl'f ill Cmlf/iet. 6. Donald G, Codfrl'y, revkw of C"/II"'·.< iu G mjlicr. by John E. Hallwas ~nd Roger D. Launius. /vrmurl IIf Murmun l1iM(!ry 2011 (2000): 22(,-30. 298 . FA RMS \{ 1,v rEw OF BOOKS 1-1 / 1-2 (2002) a priori: T he amount of theoretic.1I reconst ruction required o n the basis of the most tenuous evidence o ught to make any ra ti onal per son consid er th is approach mo re in terms of what it h.-lis us about two scholars writing at the dose of the twentiet h century than about Latter-day Sa int bel iefs and actio ns of the 18405. Fu rthermore, wit h reference to the ti tle CtdtllfCS ill COl/flier, it is d ear enough that the Latter-day Sa ints constit uted a new cultu re or ethnici ty; however, thai those outside of Latter-day Sa int (llit ure were another unifi ed "culture" is doubtful. It seems th at this la tter group was un ifi ed only in its ha tred of Joseph Smith and Mo rmoni sm. So onc group, the Lattcr-day Sa in ts, constitu ted a new culture that repu diated the val ues of thc surrounding "culture," and another group, the hosti le neighbors, in responsc to the (a larming) growth of the first. polarized aga in st it. '10 appl y the term wI/lire to th is latter group in thc same sense as to the Sai nts is to commi t the fa llacy of equivocation. Conni ct in Illinois d urin g this pe riod invo lvcd large groups of people-the primary doculllents, some of whi ch arc reproduced by I-I all was and Launius, amply attest to this. Of greater concern to me, however, is .m other confl ict involvi ng the ed itors themselves, their trea t me nt of this matcrial, and the methods of sound histori cal scholarship. [ perceive two historiographical paradigms in conflict: ( I) the older approach to history that respects the va lid ity of a his torical tcxt and consi ders how its textual detail can cO ll lributl.' 10 a historical picture, whil e reservi ng judgment abo LL t indiv iduals and motivations per se; ;md (2) the "psyc hohi slorical" approach, wh ich, although giving thc ill usion of ra tio n;ll object ivity, rl'd uccs historical deta il to gcnerali ties and produces essentialized C:lricatures of agent s, assigning th eir characters and mot ivat io ns to general types. The lat ter me thod, although generall y dec ri ed by scholars, is the O llt' em pl oyed by Ha ll was and Laun ius in thei r treatment or these prima r)' sources of Mormon history. This approach 10 hi storiography has been discredited when applied to "serio us" historical fig ures such as T homas Je fferson (no matter how well -written the wo rks arc), but religio lls figu res, considered o nly Ii minally rat ional or 1101 ..11 all, are H ALLWAS AND LAUNIUS, CULTURES /N CONFl.ICT (COOPER ) • 299 appllrcnt ly still considered ':1.ir ga me. (I am refcrring, of course, to Brodie's imaginative treatment of the life of Joseph Smith, which, in credibly, is still regarded even by some educated people as Joseph's definitive biography.)l [n addition, although providing scholars ready access to relevant primary documents from this formative period of Mormon history is praiseworthy, it soon becomes dear that the selection and editing of these documents is driven by the editors' agenda of speaking for the (hithcrto ignored) "non-Mormon" neighbors and systematically deconstrllcting and discrediting Mormon accounts, employin g the slippery notion of myth. So caveat lector: let the reader be wary. The term Illy/II is used in this book to mean anything that is fervently held to be true (bu t which is in fact false) by a self-deceived people, which shapes their thoughts and actions for better or worse. Myth seems ult imately to mean what these editors do not like. The result is a drastic an d self-conscious revisionism-the editors aim to demon str;lIe the presence of virt ue in those who are not Mormons and the lack thereof among the Mormons. Perhaps the m o~ t innovative fea ture of Cultures in COllflict is its attempt to speak for the other side. The editors observe that previolls historians have paid li ttle attention to the pe rspecti ve of those not belonging to the church, so they will champion them. These ea rl ier historia ns, mostly Latter-day Sai nts fo r whom the Na uvoo period constitutes an important pari of their sacred history (and hence not pan of"objectivc history"), have "failed to explore fully the wide range of avai lable documents" (p. 5). Accordin g to the editors, these schol ars have empbasized the victimization of their coreiigionists without justl y conS idering the cl aims of their opponents. Wh ile speaki ng for those who have been ignored seems a noble task, the approach rap idly becomes imbalanced in the other direction. One virtue of th e book is that it provides many neglected documents. It is to be hoped, therefore, that historians will consider them in future histories of 7. I'Jwn Hw di,', No Mmr Knuw$ My His/ory: Tire l.ifr of IV$(·plr ~millr, /lrl! Momu", Prol'/'''' (N",,,, Yurk: Knopf. 1').1 5). 300· FARM S REV IEW OF BOOKS 14/ 1- 2 (2002) Mormon Na uvoo. The editors' spec io ll s arguments, however, must be countered by meticulous attention to text ual detail and sound r ea~ soning, neither of which graces the present book. Slips hod analys is a nd tre ndy conclusions must be defea ted by conti nuall y re reading the primary sources and disca rd ing, as far as poss ible, all a priori p re~ co nceptions. ·10 do otherwise is to speak unfairly and misleadingly fo r the dead, appropriating thei r suffering for th e use of modern agendas. The subject of the Mormon confl ic t in Ill inois is ex tremel y co m ~ plex, and it would be very difficult or altogether impossible to evaluate it fairly in a brief introduction. Entire books could (and ought) to be written for this purpose. Nevert heless, Hall was and Launius essayed in a mere eight pages to provide comprehensive conclusions about what happened and why. Thus they have reduced the com plexities of the conflict to superficial comprehensibility by invoking a trendy ex planatory notion: a simplistic and misleading no ti on of myth, which, as I indica ted above, is a fa cil e psyc hological cOllcept. They accll se prev ious hi storians of ignoring "the crucial influence of myth on the attitudes, perce pt ions, actions, and interpretations of the ea rl y Sa ints" (p. 5). Furthermore, they cl aim that si nce believing Latt er-day Sa int hi storia ns belong to "'t he same interpretive commun ity" (I'. I ) as the Sa ints in Nauvoo, they arc thus inca pabl e of assuming a historica l perspective on thei r coreligionists. This concl usion is doubtful since contemporary La tt e r ~ da y Sa int historians have the benefit of a cen tury and a half of subsequent ex perience and hindsight. The editors' usage of the term myth as an ex pl a natory concept plays off uneasil y against current usage. In everyday parla nce, myth has a negative meaning: a fll bl e or fa lse aCCO Li nt bel ieved in by pri mi tive, nonrat ional people. According to these edito rs, who anlicipate the reader's negative response, a myth is "not a fable or falsehood but a story or understanding about events and situations that have great significance for the people involved." Bu t J. O. Robertson in America/1 My /h , American RC(l lily is more to the point: "Myths arc not deliber ately, or necessari ly consciously, fi c t i t i o u s";~ instead, they are IIIICO I1 - 8. j3nH!S O. Robertson. Ama;r 9, In J rrvirw uf 7.iMormonism, "'1 rdiginus urgani7.atiull whoS(' vi('w$ on govcrnm('nt . ru n so mlllrary It> the must chaishrd principks o( thr Unih:d St,ltcs." 302 · FARMS REv IEwal' BOOKS 14/1-2 (2002) individu;llly on the basis of its man ifold textual de tail? This is surely a dauntin g task. One easy way is to adopt the re;ld y-made theories of the psychoanal ysts, as well as the literary critics who h,we appropri ated thei r jargon, and to resolve the apparent paradox in terms of unconscious myths. The Nauvoo sce nari o wo uld appear as fo llows: The Sa ints, via co nversion and membership in the same interpretive cO lllmunity, invest themselves in the myth of "persecuted innocence" (p. 300) by taking on the identity of the Lord's chosen, whi ch oper ates in th eir subconscious. The result is that they understand th em selves as innocent in whatever they do to furth er the Lord's kin gdom. All who obstruct them are persecu tors and thereby 'Ire inhere ntly guilty. The Sa ints' own evi l is thus projected onto their supposed per secuto rs. Such is th e superficial level of historical discussion once the older and sounder philological methods of historical criticism me abandoned. An example of how the editors use th e concept of myt h to eluci date an account by psychoanal yzi ng its subject is furnished by a speech delivered by Joseph Sm ith o n 26 May 1844 in which he publ icly de nies "spiritual wifeism" (pp. ! 38--4 1). The editors assume Joseph Sm it h was actu'l ll y guilty of the adultery charges to which he was respond ing, even though Smi th insisted publicl y on his innocence. This ap parent contradiction is read as an instance of the ;'myth of pcrseCllted innocence": Smith is the Lord's chosen prophet, so wh,ltever he docs, he is by definition innocent. But, I ask, what if Smith wert' not actually guilty of adultery but instead were fo ll owing a program of legitimate, though cl andestine, plural1llarrillge? Then he would have been truly in nocent of th e charge of adultery and not just myt hically so. Fur thermore, whal Smith de nies is spiritual wife ism and ad ult ery, not polygamy or plural marriage. These arc ve ry di ff('rent things; spiri tual wifeism is apparently the adulterous version of plural marri3ge luridl y depicted by lohn C. Bennett in his expose and apparently pr.lC liced by hi lll. 1U This Illa y seem like quibbling over details, but oft en 10. John C. Bennell, '1""(' His/ory of//I(' $(1;11/$; Or, 1111 bp J I. Th~ Iw/t,."s ,.,,,(',.; ),mvisi 13. Joseph lee Robinson (18! 1- 90) left an ;! ccou nt of the I,I SI days of Nauvoo. l3ul no d~te is givC!\ for this IIldnus.::ript: how can we cOlllpletely defi nition, be false for him. In this, HaJiwas and Lau nius rely o n the views of Jan Shipps: "By its very nature [sacred history/ call only be relold and defended; not rei nvestiga ted, researched" (quoted on p. 2). An example of rejecting a work of scholarship o n these grounds concerns a landmark (and lengt hy) legal study by Elder DaH in H. Oaks before he became an aposllc. ls The editors casua ll y dismiss this thor ough and fair study, asserting that Oaks "has tried to pound a square peg into a round hole in seeki ng to legiti mate the clearly ill ega l act of destroying the Expositor" (p. 9 11. 6). Oilks's leadership role in t he Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Sai nts is also ment ioned, evi dently intended to cast hi s scholarship in to doubt. Bu t I ask: If the destruction of the Expositor were "clei.rly illegal" (as nonl awyers Hal l was and Lilun ius characterize it), then how cOllld there be room for Oaks's ex tensive legal d iscussion? Nevertheless, Oaks is to be com mended fo r the thorough character of his scholarship in considering all perspectives in the Expositor arbir, doing so in the cont ext, as tar as possible, of the legal knowledge, pr'lCt ice, ,Ind precedents of the time. He has thus exe rted a much greater effort to understand the complexities of these events tha n Hallwas and Launius seem capablc of doing. Fu rthermore, Oaks does not whitewash the Saints but criti cizes thei r deeds when appropriate. He d early distinguishes which actions of the Nauvoo City Council were legal and whi ch were not, accordi ng to the legal practice of the time. Rflt her than ofOlf1nded ly dismissing the work of a scholf1r sllch as Oaks, Ha lhvas and La unius could learn a sounder 1S. Dallin 1-1 . Oaks, "The Suppressiull of the MIlI\'I>l.' f:xp"sj'"r." UItr/J I.HII' 1i,·I· jew <)/3 ( 19(.5): 862-90 J. HALLWAS AND LAUNIUS, CULTURES IN CaNnier (COOPER) • 307 "We would li ke to help hisloria ns ... \ 0 read better, to realize that nonfiction writing provides not just f,lets but fascinat ing sclf revelations." As I stat ed earlier, the approach they take docs produce sel f-revelat ions, but of the histori an's self, not the subject's. I cringe whenever humanistic scholarly discussion dege nerates into talk of symbols and univ('rsals because th ese are several steps removed from direct evidence. I am lIsuall y uncertain what scholars mea n by these terms or how such concepts ;lre more relevant to the subject under disc ussion than to those doing the discllssin g. Symbolic structure and se lf-revelations may be appropriate for disc llssi ng a poem in freshman English but are not suitable for analyzing histori cal docu ments, at least among professional historians. Consistent with their predilection for literar y cri ticism, these edi tors S('CI11 more in terested in the writing per sc, the style of a give n account, and not in its credibility as a historica l source. So me so urces 16. This i5 the meeling .. 1 whi(: h th" Exposi,or was delcrmined to be ~ nuisance that 1U1iSI be er;ldic;lIe• .!. 17. i.,'lI er of I sa~c and Sarah Scc)!1, dalcd 16 rune 1844, dcscribiol'. what Ihey object to in Wiler-day Saint (Ioclrine :111<.1 practin'. 310 • FARMS REVlllW 01' BOOKS 14/1 - 2 (2002) exa mple, Ihat a historian should take into ;lCcounl. Furthermore, a historian must possess a command of the way language was used in Ihe particular pe ri od under examination. These editors seem to be clueless as to the explosive power o f the obscene rhetoric of the Exposiror in the linguistic context of the time. As mentioned earlier, Oaks, in his thorough <.malysis of the legal aspects of that afl:1 ir, shows a keen awareness of such linguistic details. I add that, gi\'{'n its lurid content, even the name of the paper is racy-"expositor" me'lIls "o11 e who exposes, who strips (something) naked." Future hi storia ns ought to pay closer attention to the details in the words themselves to avoid unwarran ted conclusions such as those of the prese nt ed itors. One must be aW.lre that English has changed since the days of Joseph Smith- it is easy to read an account frolll that tilllc and think we un derstand it. Fortunately, reference works ca n provide clues as to what various words meant then- the Oxford English Dict ionilrY and the reprint of the 1828 Webster dictionary ought to be basic tools for the historian of this period. Hallwas and Launius seem obl ivious to the (,ICI that certain sources are inherently untrustworthy, something th;:Jt can be ascer tained from the texts themselves. For example, one woman reports th,ll she solemnly promised not to tel1 what passed between her and church leaders but then proceeded to break her confidence in the Id ter reproduced on llilges 1 22 -25 . 1~ How can such a source be trusted? She li ed once- why not agai n? Furthermore, the testimony of the di saffected from any group must be taken with caution by virtuc of the fac t that they arc di$affected. Similarly, an interview with Sa rah Pratl (pp. 12 5-28), who became est ranged eighteen yea rs earlier, is included in al! its biller detail, describing events that supposedly took place over forty years earlier. (The amount of elapsed time since the events described ought to be sufficient to render this account sus pecl). The edilors take particular delight in this account, which con- 18. A kngthy leiter written oy Marth" Brothl'rlon at til,' rl'quest uf Joo n ( :. Ik.,,,.:;t t. {bted IJ rul y IIH2; she was supposcllly propositionl'iI hy h)Sl'l'h Smith with the (011 - nivJnce of other church kadcrs. J-IA J.LWAS AND LAUNIUS, CUL7'URES IN CONI'I.IC7' (COOf'ER) • 3 11 tains details of Smit h's supposed adulterous encounters and John C. Bennett 's amel iorating abortions that are found in no other source. I\! Pratt's report con tains details that surpass nearly all other sources and is replete with stylist ic details of disaffection that could be dcmon stratt'd by thorough textual sc rutiny. My scientific background pre disposes me to prefer simpler ex planat ions; it is si mpler to suppose that Prall and Bennett h,ld thl: adultl: rous relationship wh ile Orson was away on church erra nds th an to hypothesize a broad conspiracy between the leaders of the ch urch and th eir married paramours. The possibility that Pratt lied and had ample motivation for doing so. as the wife of a leading apostle, is not even considered, although the ed itors are quick to im pu te deception to other accounts that seem to fa vor the standard Latter-day Saint view of Nauvoo polygamy. But these editors enthusiast ically and uncritically accept such unfavorable tes timony as va li d. In bo th cases, the responsible historian mllst assess the author's intention as man ifest in her words, not from an a priori ,Illd anachronistic theory. Specific reports of Mormon vice are given disproportionate credi bility wi thollt considering the va lidi ty of the testimony. "The evidence of Mormon th eft is substantial" (p. 67). This assertion is supported only by a few anecdotes remembered decades after the supposed events, which is hardly "Sll bSI;tntial" evidence. Even the mini mal reported cases of theft may have been normal for neighboring populations of the time and not due to any supposed condo ni ng of theft by the Saints. This possib ilit y is not eve n considered-theft is ex pl ained through the mythical notion of the Mormons' "inherent innocence" and their arrogant bel ief in their right to take whatever they pleased. I suspect the reason Hall w Ii}. Includ ing huw lus<:ph Smilh suppnS(',tly frequented houses of prostitution. h"d inl<'rcou rS<' wi lh married worm,·n so Ih to do beller wo rk. Future scholars should employ time-proven meth ods of reading historical documents, which are /lot as easy as invok ing a theory such as my th or an ideology that reduces all the details to a simple entity that ca n easil y be dealt wi th. Such methods are fa ithful to details of fact, ci rcumstance, and rhetorical sit uation and require gelluine effort to employ them well. I trust that one day someone educated in th is more thorough method will produce a good history of the Nauvoo period. 211 1 suggest that one can have a val id way of understanding this period without believing that Joseph Sm ith was a "miserable impostor," that the Sa ints were his dupes, jus tifying evi l through "myth," or that the opposition was a homoge [leous ev il mob. But that historical treatment is yet to be written. If CII/tures ill COllflict docs make a contributio n, it is in showing how those not belonging to the Ch urch of Jes us Christ had legitimate concerns about their neighbors. Bu t to champion them instead of the members of the ch urch is to commi t the same error of which the edi lars accuse Latter-day SaitH historians. Lastly, I am disappointed that such low-grade history could be published by a reputable academic press. 10. f'<'rhal's the recent book hy Glcil M. Loonard is a step in the right direction. Glen M. L<,on:lfd. Nmu-o,,: A l'l"rr of p,.