A statement made "to the scattered saints" about three years after Joseph Smith died --
>That Joseph may have committed errors in his lifetime, >we do not pretend to deny. But we are constrained to >the belief that he lived and died a Prophet of God -- >or we are led to the conclusion that the whole system >of Mormonism connected with the Prophet is a humbug >from the beginning.
-- published by a committee headed up by Joseph's own brother, William.
Why these "scattered" Mormons were "constrained" to accept one of the two alternatives thus offered, is less a matter of interest, than is the fact that they so obviously laid out a second, damning alternative.
William eventually resigned himself to the fact that the only "Mormon" church that would have him for a member was the Reorganized LDS. When he finally affiliated with that group, he joined the ranks of people who rejected Joseph Smith's "Book of Abraham," and most of what Joseph had taught at Nauvoo. In fact, a number of that organization's leaders did not even accept the conclusion, that Joseph had "died a Prophet of God."
All of which leads me to wonder what "constrained" meant to those old Mormons.