Founder
Having failed through conventional legal and political means to redress the injuries of persecution and viewing political power as useful in the Church’s mission of restoration of the Gospel, Smith began a campaign for the American Presidency in 1844. This increased hostility to the LDS Church in Illinois, where Smith was already viewed as wielding too much power. There was a riot in Nauvoo after Smith, as mayor, declared a newspaper that opposed the Church a public nuisance and had it destroyed by city marshals. Acquitted for inciting a riot in Nauvoo, Smith gave himself up on the same charge in Carthage, Illinois. The next day he and his brother, while under the governor’s protection, were killed in prison by a mob of Carthage militia. He was martyred in the eyes of members of the LDS Church, who refer to him as ‘the prophet’ and see the most significant doctrines and practices of the Church as having been instituted in his lifetime. Followers believe he and a few of the early faithful had face-to-face encounters with God and angelic beings, which took a dialogic form in which he asked questions and received specific answers. Smith taught that spiritual gifts were available to human beings, if they sought them, and claimed himself to have the gift of ‘seership’ which, among other things, he used in a few cases to recover ancient texts extraneous of physical manuscripts, which contained teachings by and about biblical figures including Adam, Abraham, Moses, Enoch, and John. He inspired great devotion in those who followed him, and it was a reciprocal loyalty, because he was perceived as willing to suffer on behalf of his followers in return. However, his charismatic appeal was ascribed by contemporaneous detractors of the Church to mesmerism, an early form of hypnosis.