Posted by:
Mormer Formon
(
)
Date: July 16, 2012 10:09PM
the Mormon Church survived after all of the deceipt, fraud, etc of Joseph Smith. Well, it very well may not have except for the death of Joseph and then Brigham's subsequent ascension to the leadership. Brigham was a ruthless despot and isolated the people which gave him time to control them long enough to reach critical mass.
For a great read on this you can download and read "Brigham Young and his Mormon Empire" (Free in pdf format) which was written by a contemporary.
http://archive.org/details/brighamyoungandh003273mbp