Scott Woodward: In August 1844, there were two major contenders to assume leadership of the church following the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. On the one hand was Sidney Rigdon, a gifted man who had been at Joseph Smith’s side as his confidant since 1830. Sidney initially proved quite effective as Joseph’s scribe and mission companion, and later as his first counselor. Over time, however, Joseph lost confidence in Sidney’s stability, and therefore his ability to serve effectively as his counselor. Things came to a head in 1843 when, at a church conference, Joseph officially sought to vote Sidney out of the First Presidency for his suspected role in a kidnapping attempt against Joseph to get him back to Missouri. And although they appeared to have reconciled to some degree prior to Joseph’s death, the question remained: did Joseph at all intend for Sidney to preside over the church following his death? On the other hand, there was Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It seemed that at the same time Sidney’s star was falling, that of Brigham Young and the Twelve was rising. As time passed, their leadership only proved more and more vital and trustworthy. From leading the frantic exodus out of Missouri to Quincy, Illinois, while Joseph was in Liberty Jail, to leading crucial missions to England, where thousands of converts were brought into the church. The Twelve, under Brigham Young’s leadership, were proving to be not only reliable, but critical to the success and growth of the Church. And following his death, multiple members of the Twelve attested to a private meeting Joseph held with them that previous spring, wherein he officially commissioned and empowered them to lead the Church should his enemies kill him. In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we explore all of this in detail and set the stage for the watershed church meeting held on August 8, 1844, where church members get to vote on who they will follow. I’m Scott Woodward, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, and today Casey and I dive into our second episode in this series about succession in the presidency. Now let’s get into it.

Casey Griffiths: Hello, Scott.

Scott Woodward: Hi, Casey.

Casey Griffiths: Hey, we’re back once again.

Scott Woodward: Yes, sir. Lots of good stuff to talk about today.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: But before that, Casey, we want to put in a little plug, don’t we, for our upcoming education week class together.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: We would love to meet any of you that are in town in Utah on August 19th through the 23rd. We get to speak together at that, Casey, and I’m super excited.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And our class is going to be Tuesday through Friday, 1:50-2:45 p.m. in the Wilkinson Center Ballroom.

Scott Woodward: Yes.

Casey Griffiths: And our topic is “Truth Seeking and Good Thinking: Approaching Challenging Questions in Church History and Doctrine.” So we’re gonna be going through some of the mental tools we talked about on the podcast a couple months ago to address this. Is it okay if I say I’m also doing a solo series just on the Doctrine and Covenants?

Scott Woodward: Definitely.

Casey Griffiths: That’s 9:50 to 10:45 in 3108, Jesse Knight building, but you want to come to the one with me and Scott. That’s where the sparks are going to fly. That’s going to be . . .

Scott Woodward: Sparks are going to fly.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. It’s going to be awesome.

Scott Woodward: Sparks of light and truth.

Casey Griffiths: Sparks of joy.

Scott Woodward: Sparks of goodness and friendship. Love.

Casey Griffiths: It’s going to be great. We hope we can see you there.

Scott Woodward: Awesome. There you go. There’s our plug for Education Week. So now . . .

Casey Griffiths: Back to our subject, which is succession. So—

Scott Woodward: Yes, Yes.

Casey Griffiths: —last time we set up this whole scenario. After Joseph and Hyrum are killed in Carthage Jail, the church is devastated, and they have to choose a new leader, but there is no clear path to succession. In fact, there are several paths they could take, and we went through some of those last time, and some of these are sort of tantalizing possibilities that never really happened.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Some of them are the theory that churches still use today, that are linked back to the Restoration, as to how succession should happen. So . . .

Scott Woodward: Yep.

Casey Griffiths: We can go down the road and say, this church followed lineal succession, this one follows special appointment. We’re members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and so we believe in succession through the Twelve Apostles, and we’re going to make our case today and in the following episodes for why we think that’s the correct interpretation.

Scott Woodward: Yes. All eight of these paths that we talked about last episode were either explicitly delineated by Joseph, revelation, or they were viewed as plausible interpretations of statements that Joseph made or actions that he took. Like, this is all based, in one way or another, on Joseph Smith’s own words, actions, or revelations.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: That’s why they’re so interesting. That’s why they’re so compelling. And so let me run through those again. Let me review what we talked about last time here.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Quick recap.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. So here are the possible paths for succession, given in no particular order, okay? So, number one: Succession by a counselor in the First Presidency. And this will be Sidney Rigdon’s claim. We’ll talk more about him today. Number two: Succession via a special appointment. This would be the claim of James Strang, Lyman White, Alpheus Cutler, and this is based on the precedent of Joseph appointing David Whitmer to succeed him if he were ever to become a fallen prophet, i. e. he did not live to God, he said. So that’s number two, succession by special appointment. Number three: Succession through the office of associate president. This is a ecclesiastical position that we no longer have in the church. It was first held by Oliver Cowdery, and after his excommunication it was then given, in section 124, to Hyrum Smith. And this one actually seems incredibly legitimate.

Casey Griffiths: This seems like plan A.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: If we were to designate a plan A.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. If Joseph were to die, then Oliver Cowdery, before his excommunication, would have been the rightful successor. And then after Hyrum Smith comes into that position, if Joseph were to die and Hyrum survived, Hyrum should be the guy. But Oliver got excommunicated, Casey, and Hyrum was killed. And so that kind of basically leads to a dead end on this particular path.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Number four: Succession by the presiding patriarch. Hmm. This one was not a clear path, but it’s based on an ambiguous statement that Joseph made about the office of patriarch, of presiding patriarch, being the highest office in the church. Now, this would also point to Hyrum Smith, who was the rightful successor to his own father, Joseph Smith, Sr., in this position. And again, with Hyrum’s death, that brings this path to an end, although William Smith, the little brother in the Smith family, an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for some time after his brother’s death, tries to kind of weasel in through this path as well after he basically asked the Twelve to please make me the patriarch of the church, which they eventually do. He then turns that right around and tries to use that against them to claim that he’s the right guy to lead the church, and so he will be excommunicated not too long after that, once he publishes a pamphlet on the illegitimacy of the Quorum of the Twelve. So that’s that one: succession by presiding patriarch. Maybe a path, maybe not a path, but if it was a path, it seems to have died with Hyrum Smith, okay?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Number five: Succession by the Council of Fifty. Now, this one seems to be a misunderstanding based on a statement Joseph made in the presence of the Council of Fifty less than four months previous to his death. According to one account, he said to that group, which included the Twelve Apostles, that, “The Lord had now accepted his labors,” Joseph’s labors, ”and sacrifices, and did not require him any longer to carry the responsibilities and burden of bearing off this kingdom.” And then turning to those around him, including the Twelve, he said, “And in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I now place it upon you, my brethren of the council.” So this is a great example of an ambiguous statement that some interpreted to mean that the Council of Fifty, which included the Twelve Apostles, were the ones to now lead the church, like, ecclesiastically. But later on we find that when this particular claim was kind of pushed, the push back from the Twelve Apostles was the Council of Fifty was never intended to be an ecclesiastical council.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: This is about setting up a form of government outside the United States, right? This is about other things than that. So Joseph does not say in that quotation that he is specifically turning the burden of leading the church over to the Council of the Fifty, but rather that the burden of bearing this kingdom of God, which Joseph conceived as bigger than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, would rest upon the shoulders of the Twelve and the Council of Fifty in some way, somehow. Again, ambiguity here, right? So that’s number five. Number six: Succession by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Now, this is the claim of Brigham Young and the Twelve, and this is based on D&C 107:23-24, which speaks of the Quorum of the Twelve as forming a quorum, “equal in authority and power to the First Presidency,” and so that seems to be a pretty straightforward 1835 scriptural declaration of the legitimacy of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to succeed the First Presidency if the First Presidency were, say, to dissolve because of the death of the president, right? And so you can see the clear path there. There are other claims that the Quorum of the Twelve have, which we’re going to talk about more today. So I’m going to kind of put a pin in that one. Claim number seven—path number seven: Succession by three priesthood councils. So here’s where things get a little messy. If you want to claim D&C 107 is saying that the Quorum of the Twelve have equal authority to the First Presidency, which those verses clearly say, then you also must notice that the following verses also use that same language of equal authority in regards to a second group, the Quorum of the Seventy. And then a few verses later, and this one’s the most wild, it says that even a third group has equal authority with the First Presidency, which is the standing high councils of the stakes of Zion. We think that means kind of collectively, right?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Now, historically, the Seventy never assert themselves. They never use these verses to make a claim to the presidency after Joseph’s death. So that’s kind of a moot point in terms of succession claims. However, super interesting, we talked about last time, is that Emma actually argued from these very verses in section 107 for the then-stake president of Nauvoo named William Marks to be Joseph’s successor.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: So these verses were actually invoked in the succession crisis. Super interesting. OK. So that’s number seven: Succession by three priesthood councils. Number eight, and finally, succession by a descendant of Joseph Smith. This is the claim for Joseph Smith the third explicitly, right? And there actually is evidence, right, Casey, that Joseph truly did hope that one day his descendants would be in the leadership of the church, maybe even president of the church.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Not only Joseph, but Brigham Young said, yeah, we welcome them.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Brigham says, Joseph told me he wanted his sons to be leaders in the church. Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: But . . .

Casey Griffiths: There’s problems here.

Scott Woodward: There is no reliable evidence that Joseph actually designated one of his sons to immediately succeed him after his death.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And practically, this would be a problem because his oldest son at the time was only 11, right?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And so the fact that Joseph would want one of his sons or all of his sons to be in the leading councils of the church, nobody has a problem with that, but to say that he tapped his 11-year-old son to immediately succeed him after his death seems to carry multiple problems.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: So there you go. So there’s the eight plausible paths of succession. Each one of these eight paths represents a pretty tantalizing prospect. However, the reality of the situation kind of boots on the ground in August of 1844 was that there were really only two serious options for successors at that time, right, Casey?

Casey Griffiths: Mm-hmm. And we should mention that that doesn’t mean these other paths weren’t followed.

Scott Woodward: Right.

Casey Griffiths: Like, James Strang gathers a pretty significant following, and he’s using the special appointment theory. Joseph III actually founds the reorganized church, which becomes Community of Christ, using the lineal succession theory.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, like sixteen years later.

Casey Griffiths: Sixteen years later. But in the summer of 1844, in the immediate aftermath of the death of Joseph and Hyrum, there’s really only two realistic options for church members to follow, and that is succession by a counselor, meaning Sidney Rigdon, or succession by the Quorum of the Twelve. Some of these others, like the three quorums theory, were never even tried. They could have been—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —but nobody stepped forward and said, no, this is the right way to do it. Some people did assert that the Council of Fifty, but really the two main contenders, and that’s going to be the focus of our episode today, were Sidney Rigdon and Brigham Young. They’re our people.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. In this corner, Sidney Rigdon, first counselor in the First Presidency.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: In this other corner, Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, and we should emphasize, too, that it really is Brigham Young and the Twelve.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: It wasn’t that Brigham Young was asserting himself as the singular leader of the Church. Brigham Young was the presiding officer in the Quorum of the Twelve.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And he’s the one that’s saying, hey, the Twelve should take over leadership of the Church. And they both have a pretty good case.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. I think one has a better case than the other, but—and most of our listeners will probably know the choice that the saints will make when this is put to a vote.

Casey Griffiths: Right.

Scott Woodward: But what we want to do today is consider for a moment, what were the qualifications for Sidney Rigdon? What was his claim, exactly? And then what about that of Brigham Young and the Twelve Apostles?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So let’s start first with Sidney Rigdon.

Scott Woodward: OK.

Casey Griffiths: First of all, succession by a counselor is pretty logical, even today.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: For instance, if the president of the church is alive, but he’s not able to carry out his duties, a counselor takes over.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: You know, if Russell M. Nelson, who’s the president of the church right now, were unable to carry out his duties, the first counselor, who’s Dallin H. Oaks, would just lead the church. That’s how it works.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And so it would make sense that if the church president dies, then the first counselor’s just next in succession.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, there’s a certain logic to that. There’s a certain logical appeal there.

Casey Griffiths: There’s logic to it. And not only that, just addressing the person Sidney Rigdon—Sidney Rigdon has been around for a long time. He had been in the church longer than Brigham Young, longer than most members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Sidney is an early convert to the church. He’s converted by those first Lamanite missionaries that are sent to the frontier to teach the gospel. They stop in Kirtland, Ohio, and they give the book to Sidney Rigdon. And Sidney Rigdon at first is very, very dubious about the book. He actually says that he was going to read it and examine it. In fact, he said, “I read it, and I examined it for about an hour, and then I threw it down and said I did not believe a word of it,” and according to another account, he said that the book was a silly fabrication. But the missionaries, particularly Parley P. Pratt, who knows Sidney and Oliver Cowdery, start to work on him. He starts to have feelings. He later says that he had a vision. He says, “I saw the different orders of professing Christians passing before my eyes with their hearts exposed to view, and they were as corrupt as corruption itself. The society to which I belonged, the Reformed Baptists, also passed before my eyes, and to my astonishment, it was as corrupt as the others. Last of all, that little man,” I think this is Oliver Cowdery, “who brought me the Book of Mormon, passed before my eyes with his heart opened, and it was pure as an angel. And this was a testimony from God that the Book of Mormon was a divine revelation.” So he has this incredible spiritual experience, and I’ve got to admit that in researching Sidney Rigdon, I softened a little bit towards him, and I found some stuff that sort of touched me. Like, Parley P. Pratt said that after Sidney accepted the Book of Mormon is true, this is what Parley writes: he said, “Sidney called his congregation together. He addressed them very affectionately for near two hours. And by the way, every time Sidney Rigdon speaks in the sources, it’s for two hours.

Scott Woodward: He’s a speaker.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. He had no shortage of words.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, and apparently he was, like—like, his son says that he had, like, the world’s history on the tip of his tongue. They had, like, a photographic memory, like—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: He was pretty spellbinding to, like, listen to, according to all accounts. Like, great orator.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, everybody says that, right?

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Sidney Rigdon could speak for two hours and everybody would be spellbound. But he says this: “He spoke very affectionately for near two hours, during which most of the time, both himself and nearly all the congregation were melted into tears. He asked forgiveness of everybody who might have had occasion to be offended with any part of his former life. He forgave all who had persecuted or injured him in any manner. And the next morning, himself and his wife were baptized by Elder O. Cowdery. Most of the people were greatly affected, and they came out of the water overwhelmed in tears.” So most of his congregation joins, and let’s line up some numbers here: Sidney Rigdon is twelve years older than Joseph Smith. He is an incredibly experienced church person. He’s been part of several movements, sets up several churches in the Ohio area. And when he meets Joseph Smith, which he does, almost after his baptism, he decides to take his friend Edward Partridge, who’s not baptized yet, and travel all the way back to New York and meet with Joseph. The Lord kind of stamps Sidney Rigdon with his seal of approval by giving a revelation. This is section 35, where the Lord says to Sidney, “Verily, verily, I say unto my servant Sidney, I have looked upon thee in thy works, I have heard thy prayers, and prepared thee for a greater work. Thou art blessed, thou shalt do great things. Behold, thou wast sent forth, even as John, to prepare the way before me, and before Elijah which had come, and thou knewest it not. So he’s kind of assigned this John the Baptist sort of role, and almost instantaneously there’s more members of the church in Ohio—because Sidney’s whole congregation, practically, converts—than there are back in New York.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And Sidney’s also assigned in the revelation to immediately begin working as a scribe for Joseph Smith to take the place of Oliver Cowdery, who’s off leading the missionaries to the frontier. So Joseph and Sidney, beginning with their first meeting in December of 1830, strike up this close relationship, and for the next year or two they are in close collaboration, working on the Bible translation that Joseph Smith’s involved in. Sidney’s the primary scribe. And that kind of reaches its apex when in February of 1832, they receive the vision of the three degrees of glory, section 76. And up to this point, their relationship is great. It seems like Joseph Smith is glad to have Sidney Rigdon experience his background. Sidney Rigdon is enamored with the restoration, and he has a huge influence on Joseph Smith as well, so much so that some historians, usually not in our church, but in other churches, have said that, you know, if you place us in the larger cadre of American religions, we should be called the Smith-Rigdon movement because Sidney Rigdon was so influential. I would say that’s overdoing it a little bit, but—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —there’s no doubt Sidney Rigdon plays a big role early on here.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, and all that seems to take a turn for the worse when, a few weeks after Section 76 was received, both Joseph and Sidney were taken out of their homes and badly beaten, tarred, feathered by a mob at the John Johnson farm in Hiram. This is when Sidney Rigdon will have his head on the frozen ground, his legs raised up above the air, and he’s dragged for, like, fifty yards, just his head thumping along the ground. He is delirious. He had some serious head trauma from that experience, and he never quite seems to be the same Sidney after that.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: He’ll have moments of clarity. He’ll have moments of brilliance, but he also has moments of insanity.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Which it happens shortly after this, right? Do you want to talk about that story?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Just after the attack—now, Joseph is badly beaten up and tarred and feathered. Sidney is delirious for several days. In fact, in Joseph Smith’s history, he said, “The next morning I went to see Elder Rigdon. I found him crazy and his head highly inflamed, for they had dragged him by his heels, and those, too, so high from the earth that he could not raise his head from the rough, frozen surface, which lacerated it exceedingly. And when he saw me, he called to his wife to bring him his razor. She asked him what he wanted of it, and he replied, to kill me,” Joseph Smith. “Sister Rigdon left the room, and he asked me to bring his razor. I asked what he wanted of it, and he replied he wanted to kill his wife, and he continued delirious some days.” So, whew.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: It does appear in the historical record—because there’s some question of, well, when they wrote the History of the Church, did they deliberately pick out stuff to make Sidney Rigdon seem bad or crazy? But the historical record actually shows some instability in the weeks after the attack.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: For instance, that summer, Rigdon has kind of an episode where he gets up and declares that he’d received a revelation that the keys of the kingdom had been taken from the church, and he alone retained them, and Joseph Smith was so concerned that he basically took away Sidney’s priesthood license, which in the early days of the church was tantamount to, you know, disfellowship, but just sort of said, no, you can’t preach, you’re acting a little crazy. Although three weeks later he does give Rigdon his license back. So that’s the first kind of episode of instability following the mob attack at the John Johnson farm that Sidney Rigdon displays. And, now, there’s still highs after this, even though there’s lows. Like, Sidney gives the primary sermon at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. Again, speaks for two and a half hours. Everybody says it’s amazing. Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith are both trustees-in-trust for the Kirtland Safety Society. Like, they’re working closely. They both leave Kirtland together when the church collapses there. Sidney gets Joseph Smith and the church into trouble in Missouri.

Scott Woodward: He did.

Casey Griffiths: This is maybe the next episode of instability, where on the 4th of July, 1838, he gives what’s called the Salt Sermon. And this is a pretty fiery sermon, and there’s some evidence that Joseph Smith supported what he said, where he basically says that the apostates from the church, and these are people like Oliver Cowdery and the Whitmer family who had just been excommunicated, were salt that—

Scott Woodward: Had lost its savor, yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —And had to be trodden underfoot. And it’s in that address that Sidney Rigdon also uses the phrase, “war of extermination.” So some Latter-day Saints don’t realize that Rigdon’s the first one to use the term extermination during the troubles that happened in Missouri, and his threats in the speech are used to motivate a lot of people who probably were opposed to the church anyway, to kind of say, yeah, Latter-day Saints are out for blood. They want revenge on their enemies, so we have to stop them. And in large measure because of this, they end up in several jails: Richmond, Independence, but the most famous of them all is Liberty Jail. Now, this is the big fracture point between Joseph and Sidney, where they’re in Liberty Jail for five months. Conditions are horrific. Sidney Rigdon is in very bad health the entire time they’re in there, and Rigdon actually gets to go to trial a couple of months before Joseph and the others get out of the jail. And in the History of the Church, Rigdon goes, and because of his health, this is what the History of the Church says: “After the investigation, Sidney Rigdon was released from prison by the decision of the judge. The remainder were committed to jail. He also returned with us until a favorable opportunity offered. Through the friendship of the sheriff, Samuel Hadley, and the jailer, Samuel Tillery, he was let out of the jail secretly in the night, after having declared in prison that the sufferings of Jesus Christ were fool to his.”

Scott Woodward: Ay-yi-yi.

Casey Griffiths: And so, yikes. Sidney leaves the jail basically saying, the sufferings of Christ are foolish compared to what I’ve been through.

Scott Woodward: And it was shortly after that that Jesus said to Joseph Smith, “The Son of Man [has] descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?”

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Woodward: And I don’t know if that was a response to Sidney’s comment, but, yeah, seriously, that is a peek into the soul of Sidney Rigdon. He is not okay. He’s not well during this time.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah, he’s not doing good after Liberty.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And it does seem like the Savior is, affirming Joseph by saying, it’s not worse than what I’ve been through. “The Son of Man hath descended below them all.” And so Liberty Jail is a breaking point for Sidney Rigdon, and—in his relationship with Joseph Smith. Joseph later refers to it as a breaking point, but it also is a breaking point health-wise. Like, when Sidney is in Nauvoo, his health is not doing well, and there’s some records that indicate he could spend sometimes days, sometimes weeks in bed because his health just wasn’t very great.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: He also claims that—well, this is Orson Hyde. Orson Hyde’s a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. He said that Rigdon became somewhat disaffected, saying, “he would never follow any revelation again that did not tend to his comfort and interest, let it come from Joseph Smith, God Almighty, or anybody else.” Again, that’s Orson Hyde saying that Sidney had said that. But it’s clear from the record that there’s major, major problems. Sidney also, according to Brigham Young and John Taylor, didn’t want to regroup. He didn’t want them to gather to Nauvoo. He wanted them to scatter and sort of felt like what happened in Missouri had meant that gathering was not a good idea.

Scott Woodward: He even said that the work seems to have come to an end, so let’s all scatter. Like, he’s kind of given up.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. He’s struggling. There’s other struggles in Nauvoo. It’s clear that Sidney Rigdon was opposed to the introduction of eternal marriage and plural marriage. Sydney is not among the first people introduced into the endowment. In fact, it’s quite late. We’ll give you the dates on that. But the kicker, and, boy, this surprised me when I reread it today, was a special conference was held in October 1843, and Joseph Smith basically got up—these are from the minutes, which you can find on the Joseph Smith Papers site. It says, “The president,” that means Joseph Smith, “stated [that] the items of business to be brought before the conference to be, 1st. The case and standing of elder Sidney Rigdon, counsellor to the First President, 2d. The further progress of the Temple.” So the whole reason for holding this conference was, let’s talk about Sidney.

Scott Woodward: His standing in the church.

Casey Griffiths: Oof. And then the minutes present a very, very striking sort of conflict between Sidney and Joseph. Remember, this is October 1843, so this is about eight months before Joseph Smith is killed. And the time proximity here is very striking. Now, to give a little bit of context, what had happened was is there was controversy because somebody had tried to assassinate Lilburn Boggs, and Joseph Smith was accused of being involved in that, and the Missourians were trying to extradite him to Missouri so that he could be brought to trial for it. And Joseph didn’t want to go to Missouri for obvious reasons. He didn’t think he’d get fair treatment there. He thought this was a plot to kill him. You know, best case scenario, he ends up in a place like Liberty Jail again, which he doesn’t want to go to.

Scott Woodward: Right.

Casey Griffiths: So Joseph was accosted by two marshals from Missouri, and he escapes. This is a whole other episode for another day, but to make a long story short, he had certain people approach him and tell him that Sidney Rigdon was involved in telling them where he was going to be.

Scott Woodward: What? Sidney was in on the kidnapping of Joseph Smith?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. He leaves Nauvoo, and he goes to Dixon, Illinois, and that’s where the marshals catch him. So how did they know Joseph was going to be in Dixon, Illinois? So here’s what the minutes say: “President Joseph Smith addressed the conference, inviting an expression of any charges or complaints which the Conference had to make. He stated his dissatisfaction with elder Sidney Rigdon as a counsellor, not having received any material benefit from his labors or counsels since their escape from Missouri.” That’s where he marks the break.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: “Several complaints were then brought forward in reference to his management of the post office.” Sidney Rigdon was the postmaster in Nauvoo. “A supposed correspondence in connection with John C. Bennett, the ex-governor Thomas Carlin,” this is the governor of Missouri, “and with the Missourians of a treacherous character. Also his leaguing with dishonest persons in endeavoring to defraud the innocent.”

Scott Woodward: These are Joseph Smith’s charges against him.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Then he goes on to say—he lays out the charges, which apparently had come from the mother of Orrin Porter Rockwell. Porter Rockwell is arrested for the assassination attempt on Governor Boggs. He said that his mother had given Joseph information that Rigdon had informed the Missourians that Joseph was going to Dixon, Illinois. And then Joseph ends his statement by saying, “In consequence of those and other circumstances, and his unprofitableness to him as a counselor, he did not wish to retain him in that station, unless those difficulties could be removed, but desired his salvation and expressed his willingness that he should retain a place among the saints.” So he’s not trying to excommunicate Sidney or exile him from Nauvoo, but he doesn’t want him in the First Presidency any longer.

Scott Woodward: So he is kind of moving to propose that Sidney Rigdon is dropped from the First Presidency.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And imagine how wild this would be. Like, if you came to—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —a church conference and, you know, President Nelson gets up and says, I really don’t want Dallin H. Oaks to be my counselor anymore. I think he might’ve been involved in a plot to arrest me.

Scott Woodward: Ay-yi-yi.

Casey Griffiths: I’m not going to excommunicate him, but I don’t think he should be in the First Presidency anymore. And then Sidney was actually given the chance to stand up and defend himself. So he stands up and basically denies he’s involved with Thomas Carlin, that he’s involved with John C. Bennett, and they adjourn the meeting. So this takes the whole Saturday of conference, and then the next day they re-adjourn the meeting, and Sidney gets up to speak again. In fact, the minutes say Sidney told them about “his escape from Missouri,” why he didn’t go to Washington, D. C., or he delayed his trip to Washington, D. C. with Joseph Smith, “and closed with a moving appeal to President Joseph Smith concerning their former friendship, associations and sufferings, and expressed his willingness to resign his place, though with sorrowful and indescribable feelings. During this address, the sympathies of the congregation were [greatly] excited.” Then a couple people get up to defend Sidney, like Almon Babbitt. Joseph Smith basically says that—well, it says Joseph Smith “expressed [an] entire . . . lack of confidence in his integrity and steadfastness, judging from their past intercourse.” Then Hyrum Smith gets up. “Hyrum Smith,” it says, “followed with . . . remarks on the attribute of mercy in God, as that by which He influences, controls, and conquers—and the propriety and importance of the saint’s exercising the same attribute towards their fellows; and especially towards their aged companion and fellowservant in the cause of truth and righteousness.” So imagine you’re at general conference, president gets up and says, I want to remove the first counselor. Hyrum Smith, who is the assistant president, associate president, whatever you want to say—

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: —another member of the First Presidency, gets up and says, nah, let’s forgive him. You know, he’s a good guy, and he’s getting old, but you know, we’ve been through a lot together, so keep him. And then William Marks called for a motion, Hyrum Smith seconds it, and the conference votes to retain Sidney Rigdon. After they vote, Joseph Smith gets up and says, “I have thrown him off my shoulders. You have again put him on me. You may carry him, but I will not.” Like, whoa. Just, like, major drama.

Scott Woodward: Dramatic conference. My goodness. So Joseph is all about getting Sidney out of the First Presidency.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Sidney’s speech moves everyone in the congregation except for Joseph Smith—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: —who then makes a second plea. He says, I can’t trust this guy. I can’t trust his integrity, our past experiences. Judging from that, I know this isn’t going to go well. And then Hyrum counters, and then the whole congregation sustains Sidney to stay in the First Presidency. Oh my word.

Casey Griffiths: And I’ve got to say, before I wrote, like, the outline for this episode, I was going in saying, Rigdon’s got a pretty good case, you know, to be president of the church. But after reading through those conference minutes, I just cannot fathom. Like, imagine a general conference where the president of the church gets outvoted by the congregation and then is like, if you guys want to do that, fine, but I’m not going to do it anymore. Like, this was a wild time.

Scott Woodward: This is October 1843.

Casey Griffiths: Eight months before Joseph and Hyrum are killed in Carthage Jail, so . . .

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Crazy, crazy stuff.

Scott Woodward: And then in January, so, so just a few months later, this is when Joseph Smith is nominated to be president of the United States, and he’s going to start his presidential candidacy, right? And they need to nominate someone else to be his vice president. Who’s going to run on the ticket with him to be vice president? And the council comes up with a few names, but the one that eventually gets settled upon is Sidney Rigdon.

Casey Griffiths: Sidney Rigdon, yeah.

Scott Woodward: And there seems to be some evidence, doesn’t there, that Joseph and Sidney repair their relationship to some degree in the following months?

Casey Griffiths: There’s some indication that they reconcile. Part one would be that Sidney is Joseph Smith’s vice presidential candidate.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: The other would be that Sidney Rigdon tries to intercede when Joseph Smith starts having major issues with William Law and the other people that are going to publish the Nauvoo Expositor. Like, Sidney Rigdon goes to William Law and tries to reconcile them, tries to negotiate between the two, and after that, Sidney Rigdon was endowed. It’s really late. The date is May 11, 1844, about two months before Joseph Smith is killed. But Sidney Rigdon does finally receive his full endowment and all the temple ordinances.

Scott Woodward: And he was made a member of the Council of Fifty in March of 1844.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: He’s being invited into these more trusted positions and given the endowment, and so . . .

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And we should mention, too, when Joseph Smith is killed, Sydney is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And some people have said, oh, he was there against the prophet’s wishes, but it’s also possible that he’s there because the law at the time wouldn’t allow a president and a vice president to be from the same state. And so Sidney may have moved to Pennsylvania to establish residency there for their presidential campaign. They’re not living in the same state. But there are some people that say Rigdon went there against Joseph’s wishes. Point is, he’s out of town when Joseph Smith is killed, but it does appear that he’s in good standing with Joseph and with the church.

Scott Woodward: However, there is a statement that Joseph made about Sidney. If you kind of want to know where Joseph was at with Sidney Rigdon, the day before the martyrdom, this is reported to have been said on June 26, 1844, in Carthage Jail. This comes from a letter that Dan Jones writes. Joseph said, according to Dan Jones, “Poor Rigdon. I am glad he has gone to Pittsburgh out of the way. Were he to preside, he would lead the church to destruction in less than five years.” Whoo hoo. I’m so glad Sidney’s in Pittsburgh out of the way, because were he to preside in this church, he would lead it to destruction in less than five years. Like, those are Joseph’s final thoughts on Sidney. So glad he’s not gonna preside.

Casey Griffiths: Now, that said, if we go back and review everything we just talked about, Rigdon does have a pretty good claim to lead the church. I mean, he’s pretty much Joseph’s right hand man for most of the Restoration from 1830 onward, but it is clear that by the time they got to Nauvoo, their relationship was seriously strained, and that may have caused doubts. So that’s contender number one, Sidney Rigdon.

Scott Woodward: That’s the case for Sidney Rigdon.

Casey Griffiths: Let’s make the case for Brigham and the Twelve.

Scott Woodward: Okay, let’s do it.

Casey Griffiths: Brigham Young is president of the Quorum of the Twelve, but just to review really quickly, he’s not the original president of the Quorum of the Twelve. When you call Twelve Apostles simultaneously, they went by age. That meant that Thomas B. Marsh was the presiding president of the Quorum of the Twelve, David Patten, then Brigham Young. By the way, just a quick aside, we found out that Thomas B. Marsh misremembered his birthday so . .

Scott Woodward: So David Patten . . .

Casey Griffiths: David Patten should have been, if we were going—but I should be at TMU right now instead of BYU. But anyway, Marsh apostatizes during the difficulties in Missouri in 1838. That’s a whole other story.

Scott Woodward: Yep.

Casey Griffiths: David Patten is killed, and after David Patten’s killed, that’s when Brigham steps forward. At the time Joseph Smith is killed, though, it’s clear that Brigham Young isn’t thinking, oh, I’m supposed to step up and lead the church. And there’s a story that Brigham tells often that kind of relates to this. He’s out on a mission, he’s campaigning for Joseph Smith for president, when he has this experience. He says, “I was at Brother Beman’s house in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and I heard a letter read, which Brother Livingston received from Mr. Joseph Powers of Nauvoo, giving particulars of the murder of Joseph and Hyrum.” So, again, they’re out in the mission field. It’s days and weeks before they find out Joseph and Hyrum are even dead. He said, the first thing I thought of was whether Joseph had taken the keys of the kingdom with him from the earth. Brother Orson Pratt sat on my left. We were both leaning back on our chairs. Bringing my hand down on my knee, I said, ‘The keys of the kingdom are right here with the church.’” So it doesn’t seem like he’s saying, I should lead the church, but he’s saying, no, no, no, it’s all coming together. The keys are here, and we can lead the church.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And then he comes back to Nauvoo, and that sets up the conflict between the two.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: So the story makes clear that they may not have had a set plan for succession, but that they knew that Joseph had done certain things to set up continuity of leadership within the church in case anything ever happened to him.

Scott Woodward: And in Brigham’s mind, it has everything to do with the keys of the kingdom that Joseph had conferred on the Twelve.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Woodward: That’s a big deal.

Casey Griffiths: That’s a big deal.

Scott Woodward: That’s a really big deal.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. Let me just make the case, too, that there’s a lot of logical reasons why Brigham Young and the Twelve are the best choice to lead the church, too.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: So do you want to walk us through some of those?

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Okay, so, first, Brigham Young was already a tested leader in a crisis, right? Like, after Thomas B. Marsh apostatizes, David Patten’s killed, Brigham becomes the president of the quorum, and he organizes the exodus from the state of Missouri, while Joseph and the rest of the First Presidency are in Liberty Jail, so that’s his first moment where he really kind of steps up and people see Brigham Young as a leader. After organizing the Missouri exodus, Brigham leads the Quorum of the Twelve on a mission to England that was commanded in D&C 118. Not all the Twelve go on the mission, but Orson Hyde does and others. This is when Orson Hyde’s going to go from there and continue on to the Holy Land and dedicate it. That’s super cool. During the mission to Great Britain, the Twelve, under Brigham Young’s leadership, become really cohesive body that work really well together. They convert thousands of people together, and those people begin to emigrate to Nauvoo, so a large number of the people that are gathering to Nauvoo are the converts of Brigham and the Twelve Apostles, right? These are people who look to Brigham Young and the Twelve instinctively as stable, dependent leaders, apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ whom they can trust with their whole hearts. That’s kind of a big deal just in terms of, like, ethos there, right?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Number three, Joseph receives a revelation in July of 1841 which instructs Brigham to no longer go out on missions, but to stay with his family. This is bringing Brigham Young closer into the leadership of the church to keep Brigham close to Joseph Smith so he could observe Joseph, so he could be right there when Joseph needs him. The only reason that Brigham was gone during the martyrdom is because he was out stumping for Joseph as president of the United States, right? This was part of the Council of Fifty’s mission as well: go out and stump for Joseph as president. And so otherwise Brigham would have been right there in Carthage, no doubt, with Joseph. Number four, Brigham Young and several members of the Twelve were deeply involved in Joseph’s culminating project to put in place all the ordinances of the temple. Remember that Brigham was among the first nine members to be endowed on May the 4th, 1842. He was also introduced into plural marriage. He’ll serve on the Council of Fifty. Brigham Young is trusted to the core, and he’s right there on the leading edge of some of the most important and some of the most controversial things that Joseph Smith was doing in Nauvoo.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Finally, and this is, again, probably the biggest one, this is the first thing that Brigham Young thought of upon learning of Joseph’s death, and that is, in several meetings held with the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Joseph had bestowed upon them the keys of the kingdom, the keys necessary to lead the church. And after the martyrdom, in the midst of this crisis, there’s going to be contenders. There’s going to be people who don’t automatically see why the Quorum of the Twelve is the rightful, legitimate successors to Joseph Smith. And so the Quorum of the Twelve actually draft a declaration, they call it the Draft Declaration of the Twelve Apostles, about a meeting that was held in March of 1844. This meeting is the meeting wherein Joseph confers all the keys of the kingdom upon the twelve, making them his natural, rightful successors, right? Here’s what they say in the draft declaration: “Shortly before the martyrdom, March 1844, in a meeting attended by nine members of the twelve, the prophet Joseph Smith said, ‘Brethren, the Lord bids me hasten the work in which we are engaged. Some important scene is near to take place. It may be that my enemies will kill me, and in case they should, and the keys and power which rest on me not be imparted to you, they will be lost from the earth. But if I can only succeed in placing them upon your heads, then let me fall victim to murderous hands if God will suffer it, and I can go with all pleasure and satisfaction, knowing that my work is done, and the foundation laid on which the kingdom of God is to be reared in this dispensation of the fullness of times.‘” And then he says, “Upon the shoulders of the Twelve must the responsibility of leading this church henceforth rest until you shall appoint others to succeed you.” So, woo! I mean, that’s as clear as day. Joseph is actually tapping his successor in that meeting. He is saying, through the conferral of these keys, you, the Twelve, must bear the responsibility of, “leading this church.”

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. So the earliest this shows up, this kind of charge to the Twelve, which is what it’s often referred to, is an article Orson Hyde writes in Times and Seasons, 15 September 1844. This is what Orson Hyde writes: he says, “We were in council with Brother Joseph almost every day for weeks. Says Brother Joseph in one of those councils, ‘There’s something that’s going to happen. I don’t know what it is, but the Lord bids me to hasten and give you your endowment before the temple is finished.’ He conducted us through every ordinance of the high priesthood, and when he had gone through with all the ordinances, he rejoiced very much and said, ‘Now, if they kill me, you have got all the keys and all the ordinances, and you can confer them upon others, and the hosts of Satan will not be able to tear down the kingdom as fast as you will be able to build it up.’”

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Now, there is some controversy surrounding this statement in particular.

Scott Woodward: Yes, there is.

Casey Griffiths: And we were arguing about this right up until we started recording, which often happens, dear listener. And that’s partially because a few years ago when the Council of Fifty minutes were released, an article appeared. This was written by John S. Dinger. It was in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. By the way, shout out to all my people in the John Whitmer Historical Association, the good folks of the JWHA.

Scott Woodward: Yes.

Casey Griffiths: John Dinger wrote an article called, “The Council of Fifty, Orson Hyde, and the Last Charge: A Re-evaluation.” And John Dinger, who I don’t know—I don’t think I’ve met him—

Scott Woodward: I don’t know him either.

Casey Griffiths: —just basically argued that Hyde was saying this happened in a meeting that occurred on March 26, 1844 in the Council of Fifty minutes. And when the Council of Fifty minutes were released back in 2015/2016, there is no record of this in the Council of Fifty minutes. The editors of the Joseph Smith Papers pointed to a line in the minutes from that day that reads, “President Joseph Smith continued his instructions on heavenly things and many other important subjects.”

Scott Woodward: That’s ambiguous.

Casey Griffiths: It’s ambiguous, right? And I’ll say John Dinger is right, that the Council of Fifty minutes don’t say that that’s there, but all John Dinger is claiming is that Orson Hyde may have been inaccurate, that they aren’t in the minutes. However, I think there’s still plenty of evidence to say there was some sort of charge that took place.

Scott Woodward: Oh, yeah.

Casey Griffiths: A number of people attest to this, and walk us through some of those people, Scott, that did say there was some sort of charge that occurred.

Scott Woodward: Yeah, a hundred percent. So there’s a really good historical record here of something like a last charge meeting, is what it’s sometimes been called.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Parley P. Pratt, in the Millennial Star of March 1845, he publishes his own version. I’ll quote a snippet of it. He says, “said he,” speaking of Joseph Smith, “I know not why, but for some reason I am constrained to hasten my preparation and to confer upon the Twelve all the ordinances, keys, covenants, endowments, and sealing ordinances of the priesthood, and so set before them a pattern in all things pertaining to the sanctuary and the endowment therein.” And then Parley continues, “Having done this, he rejoiced exceedingly, for, said he, ‘The Lord is about to lay the burden on your shoulders and let me rest awhile. And if they kill me,’ continued he, ‘the kingdom of God will roll on, as I have now finished the work which was laid upon me by committing to you all things for the building up of the kingdom according to the heavenly vision and the pattern shown me from heaven.’” He summarizes, and he says, “With many conversations like this, he comforted the minds of the Twelve and prepared them for what was soon to follow.” So that’s one account.

Casey Griffiths: Here’s Wilford Woodruff. Wilford Woodruff—this is an address given December 12, 1869. It’s in the Journal of Discourses, volume 13, 164. Wilford said, “He spent the last winter of his life, some three or four months, with the Quorum of the Twelve, teaching them. It was not merely a few hours ministering to them the ordinances of the gospel, but he spent day after day, week after week, and month after month teaching them and a few others the things of the kingdom of God. Said he during that period, ‘I now rejoice. I have lived until I have seen this burden, which is rested upon my shoulders, rolled on the shoulders of other men. Now the keys of the kingdom are planted on the earth to be taken away no more forever.’ But until he had done this, they remained with him. But he lived until every key power and principle of the holy priesthood was sealed on the twelve and on President Young. As their president, he told us that he was going away to leave us, going away to rest. Said he, ‘You have to round up your shoulders to bear up the kingdom, no matter what becomes of me.’” So Wilford Woodruff is another witness that this is happening. And they don’t give the exact timing that Orson Hyde does, where it’s the 26th of March, 1844. He’s saying it was during that entire winter he was meeting with them and giving them these instructions.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. And then there was a final conferral of keys, seems to be what these accounts coalesce around that idea.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: In fact, there was—here’s an interesting account from Bathsheba W. Smith, so a woman that was there, eyewitness. She said, “In the year 1844, a short time before the death of the prophet Joseph Smith.” Yeah, so she doesn’t designate an exact day. “It was my privilege to attend a regular prayer circle in the upper room over the Prophet’s store. There were present at this meeting most of the Twelve Apostles, their wives, and a number of other prominent brethren and their wives. On that occasion, the Prophet arose and spoke at great length, and during his remarks I heard him and saw that he conferred on the heads of the Twelve Apostles all the keys and powers pertaining to the priesthood, and that upon the heads of the Twelve Apostles the burden of the kingdom rested, and that they would have to carry it.” There’s more, but the point we’re making is that although there’s a controversy about, I guess, what day this may have happened on—

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: —what’s not controversial is that there was a meeting where Joseph confers the keys of the kingdom upon the Twelve. And this is Brigham Young and the Twelve’s greatest claim to legitimacy, right? In addition to section 107 verse 24 that says they’re equal in power and authority with the First Presidency, now we have Joseph conferring upon them all the keys of the kingdom so that “if they kill me,” explicitly he says, right, if my enemies kill me, now the work will roll on because now it’s on your shoulders. So this is very unambiguous, very explicit that he is now trying to roll all of this onto the Twelve, and he feels like he succeeded, and all the eyewitnesses of this event felt like he succeeded.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: Did it completely dawn on them what he had just done? Apparently not, right? When Brigham Young first heard of Joseph’s death, his first thought was, are the keys of the kingdom gone?

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: And then he brings his hand down on his leg and says, no, they’re right here, right? So all of the significance of that meeting with Joseph earlier, having received all those keys, now begins to dawn on him and on the rest of the Twelve, and so this is the Twelve Apostles’ greatest claim to succession in the presidency.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And I want to emphasize, there’s other people we could quote. Benjamin Johnson said the same thing.

Scott Woodward: Mm-hmm. Wandle Mace, yeah.

Casey Griffiths: Wandle Mace said, “Joseph said he had rolled the burden of bearing off the kingdom onto the shoulders of the Twelve. ‘I have so diffused the priesthood. I defy all hell to overthrow it. Now it matters not what may become of me. I’m going to rest a while.’”

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And it seems like there’s so many similarities that even if Orson Hyde’s dates and times have become a little bit questionable, there’s still plenty of people that are saying something happened. Now we want to emphasize, it doesn’t appear that these meetings were public. Joseph Smith only makes a public statement about Hyrum Smith taking his place, but, I mean, logically, there’s a pretty good case for the Twelve to lead. They’re tested. Brigham Young led the exodus out of Missouri. A growing number of converts in Nauvoo were converted by the Twelve, and these British saints really see the Twelve as their people, and they have been steady throughout the entire Nauvoo period. For me the biggest argument is, man, I was just shocked when I saw the dates as to when they were endowed. Brigham Young is endowed and brought in the quorum of the anointed May 4th through 5th, 1842. Sidney Rigdon, not until May 11, 1844, just before the prophet’s death.

Scott Woodward: Yeah.

Casey Griffiths: And so you’ve got these two lined up here, and honestly, assessing these sources again, boy, it feels like the case logically for the Quorum of the Twelve is pretty overwhelming.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. Let me read one more quote from Orson Hyde. He wrote a letter in September of ’44 to a friend named Ebenezer Robinson, and he makes it very explicit that the keys of the kingdom are the very issue that disqualifies Sidney Rigdon. Listen to this: “We have had a charge given us by our prophet,” meaning the Twelve Apostles. “We have had a charge given us by our prophet, and that charge we intend to honor and magnify. It was given in March last. To us were committed the keys of the kingdom, and every gift, key, and power that Joseph ever had confirmed upon our heads by an anointing, which Brother Rigdon never did receive.” He’s making very explicit here that the reason that Sidney Rigdon—above all the other reasons why Sidney Rigdon is not the legitimate successor of Joseph Smith, above all, it’s because Joseph did not confer upon him the keys of the kingdom, but he did confer those upon the heads of the Twelve. That is why their case is so solid.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah. And so a good logical case for the Twelve. Like, if you’re just looking at the circumstances, I would say, yeah, it’s a lot safer bet to go with Brigham Young and the Twelve than Sidney Rigdon, especially given his kind of tumultuous history. But, again, the members of the church are a spiritual people. They believe in miracles. They believe in signs. They’re probably looking for a divine confirmation. And I think that’s where we’re going to pick up the story next time. So we’ve made our case for the two contenders. Now, next time we’re going to talk about what actually happened when they presented their case to the members of the church, and the members of the church have to make the decision about who’s going to lead the church.

Scott Woodward: Yeah. They’ll actually get to vote on it.

Casey Griffiths: Yeah.

Scott Woodward: This is really, really interesting, and we can’t wait to dig into all of this with you next time, so we will leave it hanging right there. What’s going to happen when Sidney Rigdon and Brigham and the Twelve are both presented before the membership of the church, both cases are laid out in front of them all? Like, what will the members of the church do? Stay tuned.

Casey Griffiths: Stay tuned.

Scott Woodward: Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week we explore the details of that most momentous of moments in our history where, on the 8th of August, 1844, church members voted on who will lead the church. We’ll also discuss both the marvel and the controversy surrounding the reported transfiguration of Brigham Young at this meeting. If you’re enjoying Church History Matters, we’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to subscribe, rate, review, and comment on the podcast. That makes us easier to find. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. And while we try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast, please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Scripture Central or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.