I Have Questions wrote: ↑Thu Feb 12, 2026 7:37 am
Joseph (and Hyrum) were shot in a gun fight that took place in Carthage Jail. Local townspeople, fed up with Joseph’s shenanigans - he’d taken their daughters, their wives, their money etc, were seeking to do Joseph harm (not necessarily to kill him, we don’t know if their intentions ran to that). To facilitate the local feeling against Joseph, and to quell the social and political threat that Joseph posed, Governor Thomas Ford reduced the jail’s protection to just a few men who he knew were sympathetic to the feelings against Joseph, thereby paving the way for the townsfolk to gain easy access.
Ultimately Thomas Ford is responsible for Joseph’s death.
I’m going to strenuously disagree with you on this.
Joseph Smith wasn’t sneaking over to Carthage and Warsaw, converting their daughters and wives, and then marrying them. He wasn’t taking their money, either.
The main reason the people of Illinois were pissed were political and legal. Joseph Smith sold the Saints' vote to the highest bidder, and double-crossed the people who purchased the Saints vote, and then announced that God wanted them to vote for the other guy. It became impossible to win elections without the Mormon vote, and both sides hated Joseph Smith for controlling state politics this way. Add to that:
1- Joseph and other Nauvoo leaders repeatedly used the Nauvoo Municipal Court’s alleged habeas corpus powers to discharge state and federal warrants, a practice that clearly undermined the rule of law and making Nauvoo citizens effectively immune to outside legal authority.
2- There were many rumors and credible accusations, that criminals were ripping off the broader community and then being protected by the Nauvoo legal system and militia.
3- Joseph Smith using the Nauvoo Legion to free himself from federal marshals who had arrested him with a valid arrest warrant over the Boggs assassination attempt.
4- Passing a law that if somebody from Nauvoo was arrested anywhere in the state, the federal or state marshals had to bring the citizen back to Nauvoo and give the municipal judge the opportunity to quash the state or federal arrest warrant and indictment. And if the indictment was quashed, the marshal would be charged with the crime of a false arrest.
5- Joseph Smith maintaining control as part of a theocracy that made him effectively above the law and incompatible with American civic values
6- Joseph Smith destroying the Nauvoo Expositor and then declaring martial law.
This was on the frontier, and the power of the system to work was unproven. The locals thought Joseph Smith was a tyrant that knew how to work the system to avoid being held accountable. The assassination was frontier justice against an extremely terrible mayor/general/prophet who was a bona fide tyrant. Religious issues were secondary and were really only a problem because they facilitated his abuse of power. Thomas Ford let the legions go because they were farmers who needed to get back to their fields. The locals promised Ford they would protect Smith, and Ford believed them. Maybe that was foolish of Ford, but he wasn’t plotting to kill Smith this way.
