In an incident about which Smith’s personal diary and official history are completely silent, he was acquitted in June 1837 of conspiring to murder anti-Mormon Grandison Newell. The silence may be due to the fact that two of Smith’s supporting witnesses in the case, both apostles, acknowledged that the prophet discussed with them the possibility of killing Newell. Apostle Orson Hyde testified that ‘Smith seemed much excited and declared that Newell should be put out of the way, or where the crows could not find him; he said destroying Newell would be justifiable in the sight of God, that it was the will of God’ etc. Hyde tried to be helpful by adding that he had ‘never heard Smith use similar language before,’ ... Apostle Luke S Johnson acknowledged to the court that Smith had said ‘if Newell or any other man should head a mob against him, they ought to be put out of the way, and it would be our duty to do so.’ However, Johnson also affirmed: ‘I believe Smith to be a tender-hearted, humane man.’ Whether or not the court agreed with that assessment, the judge acquitted Smith because there was insufficient evidence to support the charge of conspiracy to commit murder. ibid. pp.91-92
In Nauvoo it was the orders from Joseph Smith and his apostles to beat, wound and castrate all Gentiles that the police could take in the act of entering or leaving a Mormon household under circumstances that led to the belief that they had been there for immoral purposes ... In Utah it was the favorite revenge of old, worn-out members of the Priesthood, who wanted young women sealed to them, and found that the girl preferred some handsome young man. The old priests generally got the girls, and many a young man was unsexed for refusing to give up his sweetheart at the request of an old and failing, but still sensual, apostle or member of the Priesthood. As an illustration ... Warren Snow was Bishop of the Church at Manti, San Pete County, Utah.
He had several wives, but there was a fair, buxom young woman in the town that Snow wanted for a wife ... She thanked him for the honor offered, but told him she was then engaged to a young man, a member of the Church, and consequently could not marry the old priest ... He told her it was the will of God that she should marry him, and she must do so; that the young man could be got rid of, sent on a mission or dealt with in some way ... that, in fact, a promise made to the young man was not binding, when she was informed that it was contrary to the wishes of the authorities.
The girl continued obstinate ... the authorities called on the young man and directed him to give up the young woman. This he steadfastly refused to do ... He remained true to his intended, and said he would die before he would surrender his intended wife to the embraces of another ... The young man was ordered to go on a mission to some distant locality ... But the mission was refused ...
His fate was left to Bishop Snow for his decision. He decided that the young man should be castrated; Snow saying, ‘When that is done, he will not be liable to want the girl badly, and she will listen to reason when she knows that her lover is no longer a man.’
It was then decided to call a meeting of the people who lived true to counsel, which was held in the school-house in Manti ... The young man was there, and was again requested, ordered and threatened, to get him to surrender the young woman to Snow, but true to his plighted troth, he refused to consent to give up the girl. The lights were then put out. An attack was made on the young man. He was severely beaten, and then tied with his back down on a bench, when Bishop Snow took a bowie-knife, and performed the operation in a most brutal manner, and then took the portion severed from his victim and hung it up in the school-house on a nail, so that it could be seen by all who visited the house afterwards.
The party then left the young man weltering in his blood, and in a lifeless condition. During the night he succeeded in releasing himself from his confinement, and dragged himself to some hay-stacks, where he lay until the next day, when he was discovered by his friends. The young man regained his health, but has been an idiot or quite lunatic ever since ....
After this outrage old Bishop Snow took occasion to get up a meeting ... When all had assembled, the old man talked to the people about their duty to the Church, and their duty to obey counsel, and the dangers of refusal, and then publicly called attention to the mangled parts of the young man, that had been severed from his person, and stated that the deed had been done to teach the people that the counsel of the Priesthood must be obeyed. To make a long story short, I will say, the young woman was soon after forced into being sealed to Bishop Snow ...
In the midsummer of 1857 Brigham Young also expressed approval for an LDS bishop who had castrated a man. D Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power vol 2@250
President Hinckley telephoned in June 1982 to say that he was sympathetic about a request I had written to obtain access to documents in the First Presidency vault [about post-Manifesto polygamy] but that my request could not be granted.
Since I now knew all I ever would about post-Manifesto polygamy, I told him I would go ahead and publish the most detailed and supportive study I could of the topic.
President Hinckley said the decision was up to me, that he had done what he could to help. D Michael Quinn, ‘On Being a Mormon Historian (And Its Aftermath) in Smith, Faithful History’, Essays on Writing Mormon History p90
In 1985, after ‘Dialogue’ published my article LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages 1890-1904, three apostles [Boyd K Packer, Mark E Petersen and Ezra Taft Benson] gave orders for my Stake President to confiscate my temple recommend.
Six years earlier, I had formally notified the First Presidency and the Managing Director of the Church Historical Department about my research on post-Manifesto polygamy and my intention to publish it ... Now I was told that three apostles believed I was guilty of ‘speaking evil of the Lord’s anointed’. The Stake President was also told to ‘take further action’ against me if this did not ‘remedy the situation’ of my writing controversial Mormon history ...
I told my Stake President that this was an obvious effort to intimidate me from doing history that might ‘offend the Brethren’ (to use Ezra Taft Benson’s phrase) ... The Stake President also saw this as a back-door effort to have me fired from BYU ...
At various stake and regional meetings, Apostle Packer began publicly referring to ‘a BYU historian who is writing about polygamy to embarrass the Church’. At firesides in Utah and California, a member of BYU’s Religious Education Department referred to me as ‘the anti-Christ of BYU’ ... Church leaders today seem to regard my post-Manifesto polygamy article ... as ‘speaking evil of the Lord’s anointed’ because they themselves regard certain acts and words of those earlier Church leaders as embarrassing, if not actually wrong. I do not regard it as disloyal to conscientiously recreate the words, acts and circumstances of earlier prophets and apostles ...
No one ever gave me an ultimatum or threatened to fire me from Brigham Young University. However, University administrators and I were both on the losing side of a war of attrition mandated by the General Authorities ...
On 20 January 1988, I wrote a letter of resignation, effective at the end of the current school semester ... I explained [that] ‘the situation seems to be that academic freedom merely survives at BYU without fundamental support by the institution, exists against tremendous pressure and is nurtured only through the dedication of individual administrators and faculty members’ ...
It is ... my conviction that God desires everyone to enjoy freedom of inquiry and expression without fear, obstruction or intimidation. I find it one of the fundamental ironies of modern Mormonism that the General Authorities, who praise free agency, also do their best to limit free agency’s prerequisites – access to information, uninhibited inquiry and freedom of expression. ibid.
During the summer of 1841, shortly after Heber’s return from England, he was introduced to the doctrine of plural marriage directly through a startling test – a sacrifice which shook his very being and challenged his faith to the ultimate. He had already sacrificed homes, possessions, friends, relatives, all worldly rewards, peace, and tranquility for the Restoration. Nothing was left to place on the altar save his life, his children, and his wife. Joseph demanded for himself what to Heber was the unthinkable, his Vilate. Totally crushed spiritually and emotionally, Heber touched neither food nor water for three days and three nights and continually sought confirmation and comfort from God. Finally, after ‘some kind of assurance’ Heber took Vilate to the upper room of Joseph’s store on Water Street. Stanley B Kimball, Heber C Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer p93
It is the duty of a woman to be obedient to her husband, and unless she is, I would not give a damn for all her queenly right and authority, nor for her either, if she will quarrel and lie about the work of God and the principles of plurality. Heber C Kimball, Journal of Discourses IV:82
I will say that I was naturally begotten; so was my father, also my Saviour Jesus Christ. According to the Scriptures, he is the first begotten of his father in the flesh, and there was nothing unnatural about it. Heber C Kimball, Journal of Discourses VIII:211
In the spirit ... world we will go to brother Joseph ... He will say to us, ‘Come along, my boys, we will give you a good suit of clothes. Where are your wives[?]’ [Answering Joseph] ‘They are back yonder; they would not follow us.’ ‘Never mind,’ says Joseph, ‘here are thousands, have all you want.’ Heber C Kimball, Journal of Discourses IV:209
It is believed in the world that our females are all common women. Well, in one sense, they are common – that is, they are like all other women, I suppose; but they are not unclean, for we wipe all the unclean ones from our midst: we do not only wipe them from our streets, but we wipe them out of existence. Heber C Kimball
I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow. Heber C Kimball, ‘The Twenty Seventh Wife by Irving Wallace p101’
Brethren, I want you to understand that it is not to be as it has been heretofore. The brother missionaries have been in the habit of picking out the prettiest women for themselves before they get here, and bringing on the ugly ones for us; hereafter you have to bring them all here before taking any of them, and let us all have a fair shake. Heber C Kimball, The Lion of the Lord