Storming the Nation by Derek R. Sainsbury

Author:Derek R. Sainsbury
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Published: 2020-02-25T22:06:17+00:00

At age eighteen in Vermont, Lorenzo H. Hatch learned of Joseph’s death. He heard a voice say, “Brigham Young is the man God has chosen to fill the vacancy.” Courtesy of Church History Library.

However, the next week they learned that Joseph had been killed. “At first I could not believe it,” Hatch wrote, “but at last was convinced that it was a fact.” He “mourned and wept as the children of Israel did when Moses was taken from them. I was alone, a young man being but eighteen years old, 1,500 miles from home. The question in my mind was, Who would lead the church now that the Prophet Joseph was gone?” A possible answer arrived in the mail in August. The letter from Hatch’s uncle Jeremiah stated plainly that “the Lord had called Sidney Rigdon to lead the church.” Hatch recalled, “It was about noon. I stood in the middle of the sitting room reading the letter to my cousin when a voice plain and distinct said, ‘Brigham Young is the man God has chosen to fill the vacancy.’” Hatch turned to his cousin and shared the truth with joy. He stayed in the East until the next spring, preaching the apostles as the legitimate leaders of the church. He returned to Nauvoo with Hannah, who had eloped with him.6

* * *

In the aftermath of Joseph’s death, most commentators predicted the end of the church. They believed that deceived followers would flounder while looking for a new prophet and scatter. While some church members wandered and others made claims of prophetic succession, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not die. Most of the Saints followed Brigham Young, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Church leaders finished building the temple, administered its sacred ordinances, and organized a mass migration to the West. Despite difficulty, tragedy, and even death, the church not only survived but strengthened. Brigham and the Council of Fifty established the State of Deseret, an independent, theodemocratic government to protect the new Zion. From the first weeks following Joseph’s assassination to the creation of Deseret, church leaders made electioneers leaders in organizing, moving, and establishing Zion. Indeed, the electioneers were well suited to leadership callings. Their demanding missions had concretized Zion and theodemocracy in their hearts; and the assassination, while shocking and traumatizing, fortified their desires to finish “Joseph’s measures.”7

Shared trauma turned to united action. The apostles had labored throughout the country alongside these men, sharing missionary trials and triumphs and the agony of Joseph’s death. It was natural for church leaders to look to the cadre of electioneers—whose desires were aligned with those of church leaders, whose loyalty had been tried, and whose names, abilities, and characters were known—to help lead the movement. They understood theodemocracy well, having advocated and suffered for it, and their minds were one with church leaders. No one could discount their unique preparation, as a body and to the man, to push the Lord’s work forward. It

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