Posted by:
Lot's Wife
(
)
Date: February 14, 2017 12:42AM
Kolob is correct that the parties today do not resemble the parties of the early 19th century--the Republican Party of course did not even exist--so it doesn't make sense to use modern terminology to describe them.
But lets start with Smith and his alleged liberalism. It isn't accurate to describe him as racially progressive. He at one point said that the blacks should be sent back to Africa, at another that they should develop separately (apartheid, effectively). More to your point, a scripture telling Mormon men to take to wife the Lamanite women is not progressive for the simple reason that God apparently had no interest in the Lamanite men. The scripture treats those men just as the FLDS treats their "lost boys," an excess to be tossed aside as the leaders take all the women. The goal of such intermarriage was the systematic destruction of Native American culture and identity.
Second, there have been a lot of allegations about Bennett being a closet abortionist but I don't think there is conclusive evidence about that. He surely wasn't openly operating as such because abortion was scandalous in the Mormon world as well as the broader United States. I think it's important to distinguish between abortion as a woman's choice and abortion as a means used by men to hide their infidelities. If Bennett was an abortionist, he was the latter sort and it was in that capacity that Smith used him.
Third, totalitarians use the vote differently depending on their relation to power. Lenin and Stalin and Mao urged democracy and elections when they were out of power since those elections could be used to weaken the people who were dominant. Once the revolutionaries gained control, however, they either rejected elections altogether or they manipulated them to ensure their own victory. Joseph Smith was the same. Back when he was organizing his movement and fighting against more established churches, he was all for democracy. But as he gained influence his commitment to that ideal waned. He pursued precisely the path by which a rebel becomes a dictator.
Fourth, his communalism had multiple sources. There had always been such movements in European Christianity, and there were several in the fringe area where Smith lived and built his church. At some level he probably believed the system was a good one although he clearly insisted on maintaining control over it; and as shown by the Kirtland fiasco, he sometimes robbed it blind. So overall, I'd say that Smith was liberal when being such served his interests but by the time he became dominant within Mormonism he insisted on holding all the instruments of power in his own hands.
On the other point, the commitment to the parties, it's helpful to review the data. One of the reasons the Mormons were kicked out of some of their home areas was they voted as a block and sometimes switched on a dime. The Saints in Smith's day used the vote tactically and the various political parties all came to fear their capricious behavior.
Mormon commitment to the Democrats became more dependable and sincere during Brigham Young's time because the fledgling Republican Party was opposed to "those twin relics of barbarism," slavery and polygamy. The Democrats advocated States Rights because that ensured that the southerners voted for that party. The Mormons rode on the south's coattails, insisting on the sovereignty of the states because that insulated Utah from the rule of monogamy. Brigham Young was adamant about that: he hated Lincoln, damned him, and wanted the south to win the war. Had that happened and the specter of anti-polygamy legislation faded, the Mormons may well have felt that the Democrats had served their purpose and have reverted to an opportunistic approach to elections.
So no, I don't think Joseph Smith was a committed Democrat or a committed liberal. He was an opportunist whose behavior reflected his position in the power structure. Brigham Young took up the mantle when it symbolized absolute power and hence had no need to go through a liberal stage. The apt comparison is again to Lenin, whom revisionist historians inaccurately thought was something of a liberal, and Stalin, who had no need to act that way. You can't assume that people who claim to be liberal and progressive when they are weak are in fact that way. The real progressive is the one who, like George Washington, surrenders power when he could have kept it. Joseph Smith does not meet that criterion.