Lincoln Looks West: From the Mississippi to the Pacific

8. The Mormon Connection: Lincoln, the Saints, and the Crisis of Equality

➢ 189 8 ➢ The Mormon Connection: Lincoln, the Saints, and the Crisis of Equality Larry Schweikart Political liberty,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, “bestows exalted pleasures from time to time upon a certain number of citizens. Equality every day confers a number of small enjoyments on every man. The charms of equality are every instant felt and are within the reach of all.” Democratic communities , he explained, have a passion for equality that is “ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible; they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery.” Tocqueville divined what few since have; that is, the striving for equality has turned into a struggle for egalitarianism which has surpassed the quest for freedom.1 George Hubbard, in his article “Abraham Lincoln as Seen by the Mormons ,” examined an individual and a religious group which grappled with the issues of the day—slavery, polygamy, popular sovereignty, and equality. Hubbard’s otherwise excellent scholarship wanes in his timid conclusion that the Mormons’ intense anti-Lincoln sentiment rather miraculously shifted, simply because of Lincoln’s avowed policy to “let them alone.” This conclusion is at best simplistic and at worst simply false. What Hubbard failed to realize was that the true struggle facing Lincoln and the Mormons involved a solution to the antinomies of equality. The Mormons and Lincoln attempted to reconcile these antinomies in different ways. While the Mormons held an egalitarian view of equality which resembled Enlightenment concepts, Lincoln subscribed to a position which has been considered by some to be Aristotelian. In examining contacts between Lincoln and the Latter-day Saints, this work will emphasize the struggles with equality each From Western Humanities Review 34 (winter 1980): 1–22. “  Larry Schweikart 190 shared. Harry Jaffa has thoroughly detailed Lincoln’s views on equality; therefore the bulk of this interpretation will stress Mormon concepts of equality. Additionally, the intention here is to show that Lincoln recognized that Mormon leadership, the product of a theology devised by one man, rested solely upon the individual holding the office of church president. After some experimentation, Lincoln designed a policy which placated the leadership, thereby maintaining order in Utah. Lincoln, however, failed to recognize that his own struggle with the issues of the day resembled that of the Mormons. Mormon doctrinal inconsistencies, like Lincoln’s attempts to balance notions of consent and equality, only reflected the philosophical confusion of the president and a religious group.2 A brief review of the concepts of equality which preceded the 1800s may be useful. The Enlightenment inverted previous teachings of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas which viewed all men as equal only in their ability to choose between good and evil. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau contributed to a theory which held “that there exist, somehow , a state of nature and a social state with a contract between them . . . ,” and also assumed, as Leo Strauss revealed, that metaphysical and ethical views were “untenable as regards their claim to be simply true.”3 The creation of the social state leveled all men by removing the moral choice. As these ideas drifted into nineteenth-century America, the leveling process, romantically called equality, became viewed as the solution to all problems.4 Mormons, headed by Prophet Joseph Smith, sought territory in which they could pursue their own interpretations of equality and freedom. Settling in Zion, Missouri, their dealings in local politics and their amorphous stand on slavery soon resulted in the Mormons’ expulsion. Relocating in Hancock County, Illinois, the Mormons again built a settlement, Nauvoo, which soon grew to be the largest city in the state. Smith was convinced the Mormons could be an effective political force in Illinois, and his church represented a tempting bloc of voters for the party which could woo them.5 Lincoln first crossed paths with the Mormons in the election of 1840. Whigs and Democrats both expressed interest in the six thousand eligible Mormon voters, and as Lincoln’s letter to John T. Stuart indicates, Whigs sent campaign literature to the Latter-day Saints: “Speed says he wrote you what Jo. Smith said about you as he passed here. We will procure the names of some of his people here and send them to you before long.”6 Using votes as political leverage required the Saints to shift their support from party to party. In Missouri, Mormons tended to vote Democratic, ➢ The...