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The recent announcement that the Joseph Smith Papers will be publishing the Nauvoo Council of Fifty Minutes had history nerds celebrating, and everyone else either wondering why the nerds were ecstatic or shrugging. The Council of Fifty is an enigmatic organization, of which we have very limited knowledge and whose minutes have been extant but completely unavailable to researchers. Even in the halcyon day of Camelot no one saw the minutes and as such they remained a sort of holy grail for the disbanded knights and their followers.



People predisposed to antagonism against either the LDS church or the History Department, could easily point to the existence of the minutes as a skeleton in the proverbial closet. See, the church is hiding something. Variations of this sentiment are so difficultly disabused that uneducated skeptics upon hearing the recent news couldn’t shake their conspiracies long enough to be happy.

So the Council of Fifty. What follows is a description based on information that researchers have pieced together from diaries and other documents, and is (excitingly) subject to massive potential revision when the minutes become available. On April 7th, 1842, Joseph Smith received a revelation instructing him to establish new organization parallel to the church. This organization has been referred to as the Council of Fifty, though the revealed name is quite different. It is an organization that has captured the fancy of many, both sympathetic and critical of Mormonism, and the best treatments of it were published by Ehat and Quinn mostly in the early 1980s. [n1] Jedidiah Rogers has edited a collection of documents relating to the Council of Fifty to be soon published with Signature, but as I understand it, it is mostly Utah era documents. Anyway, it appears that Joseph Smith ordained the council to be the governing body of the world, with himself as its King.

According to a late copy, the revelation dictated the name of the council:

Verily thus saith the Lord, This is the name by which you shall be called, The Kingdom of God and His Law, with the Keys and power thereof, and judgment in the hands of his servants, Ahman Christ. [n2]

Now the concept of a Kingdom of God separate from the Church remains somewhat familiar in Mormon discourse [n3], but the idea that Daniel’s rock hewn from the mountain never to be stopped is not the Church but a parallel organization is quite foreign. Moreover the original concepts have been modified a bit to fit more keenly into a modern perspective [n4].

In the post-martyrdom era it is particularly complex because discourses and institutions become saturated with ideas and cosmologies regarding kingdoms, particularly as a function of the temple (cosmological priesthood anyone?). But the Council of Fifty is clearly part of this potent gemische. After rebuking the Saints by the Platte River for excessive frivolity on the trail West, Brigham gathered the leadership around him and described their mountain destination in terms that clearly incorporate the Council of Fifty. Wilford Woodruff recorded:

He then spoke of the standard & ensign that would be reared in Zion, to govern the Kingdom of God * And the nations of the earth. For every nation would bow the knee & every tongue confess that JESUS was the Christ. And this will be the standard: The Kingdom of God & his Laws & Judgment in {the [-] if [–] man Christ}. And on the standard would be a flag of every nation under heaven so there would be an invitation to all Nations under heaven to come unto Zion. [n5]

Back to Joseph Smith. Despite receiving the revelation in April 1842, JS waited until April 1844 to establish the kingdom. This wait was during Bennett’s crusade against the church and while Hyrum and Emma had yet to be fully converted to all of Joseph’s teachings. Once they were converted, albeit in the case Emma only temporarily, and the complete temple liturgy revealed (with the associated capacity of King and Queen) the Council of Fifty was soon organized. This chronology suggests that the council’s organization was a function of the temple liturgy. We’ll see.

JS established the Kingdom in secret and the business of the members was to remain so. JS purportedly initiated members into the council by covenant, password and penalty [n6]. Members included a wide demographic of Mormon hierarchy and even a few non-Mormons. JS chose all the members, which action required unanimous consent of the council. Though relatively few non-Mormons were included in the council, the Lord apparently revealed that non-Mormons would persist into the Millennium, and any just government would require their representation [n7]. Council members were organized into a hierarchy by age (sort of like the Quorum of the Twelve at the time) and JS was chairman and apparently anointed Prophet, Priest and King over the Council and the world.

The theology is sort of sketchy, but it appears that it is with this context that JS preached just days after receiving the revelation on the organization of the Council:

Although David was a King he never did obtain the spirit & power of Elijah & the fulness of the Priesthood, & the priesthood that he received & the throne & kingdom of David is to be taken from him & given to another by the name of David in the last days, raised up out of his linage [n8]

JS apparently taught that his first-born son in the covenant, David Hyrum – born after Joseph’s death, would be this latter-day King over Israel [n9], which teaching was recognized by some nineteenth-century church leaders [n10].

Once the Council was organized, it adopted parliamentary “Rules of the Kingdom,” including those governing legislation. Quoting Ehat:

To pass, a motion must be unanimous in the affirmative. Voting is done after the ancient order: each person voting in turn from the oldest to the youngest member of the Council, commencing with the standing chairman. If any member has any objections he is under covenant to fully and freely make them known to the Council. But if he cannot be convinced of the rightness of the course pursued by the Council he must either yield or withdraw membership in the Council. Thus a man will lose his place in the Council if he refuses to act in accordance with righteous principles in the deliberations of the Council. After action is taken and a motion accepted, no fault will be found or change sought for in regard to the motion. [n11]

While affirmation or sustaining was required of members, it is interesting that all members were under covenant to voice dissent. There is tension in this legislative process as in the instance that no resolution could be passed, the chairman was to attain the will of the Lord by revelation. It is possible, however, that the people held an ultimate veto. The council could not meet unless fifty percent of the members were in attendance. If a majority of council members did not favor pending legislation they could simply not allow any meetings to be held. Perhaps.

The evidence suggests that the council never realized the measure of its design. In JS’s day, it did send out ambassadors to foreign governments and lobbied the American government. It may have caused quite a stir if it excommunicated William Law. It explored expeditions to Texas, Oregon and California for the emigration of the Saints and it was the foundation for Joseph’s campaign for U.S. President.

While the council was active during the final months of JS’s life, his death was apparently the beginning of its end. Theocracy was an important accusations of the Expositor. The council did play a significant role in the succession crisis if you go with Ehat, but Brigham’s later use of the council was quite perfunctory. And while there was a significant amount of council activity from 1848 to 1850 while the civil government of the Utah Territory was established, the council subsequently fell into disuse.

As he was wont, John Taylor, in a bit of JS fundamentalism, aspired to re-kindle the council and is the last publicly recorded individual to be anointed Prophet, Priest and King. All real power remained with the First Presidency, however, and the council continued to be a largely a figurative body until the death of its last member in 1945 [n12].

As he left for Carthage, Joseph instructed his secretary to burn all the minutes of the council. Fortunately, William Clayton spared them by burial. They ended out in the Historian’s Office files, then in Joseph Fielding Smith’s safe, which became the First Presidency Vault [n13]. They have stayed there. However, the JSPP has received a steady diet of document from the First Presidency, with virtually every volume containing some material that had not been previously available. And now we have the assurance that these minutes will be published with the balance of Joseph Smith papers.

There really aren’t any other great reveals. This is it kids.

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