Mormon History
Mormon Response to Spaulding Authorship - 1881
The Salt Lake Daily Tribune
March 4, 1881
"THIS STUPID SPAULDING
STORY."
_______
Whenever the organs of Mormonism refer to the Spaulding story in
connection with the Book of Mormon, their reluctance to ventilate the subject is
very evident. They deign to refer to the unsavory topic only by particular
request, the doubters and curious [about?] this exploded Spaulding story, even
in the Mormon fold, are not yet all dead, or quite converted, it would seem.
"Our apology to our readers for alluding at any length to this dead and almost
forgotten issue." "All the absurd accusations and remarks which have emanated
from our enemies, from the pulpit and the press, in regard to this ridiculous
Spaulding matter." "No foundation except in the bowels of hell, for this stupid
Spaulding story," etc. Such is the unvarying temper in which this much too
[delicate] and difficult and not dangerous subject is handled by them. It is
sought to be instilled into the minds of young Utah that there is nothing in it
and very little to it, that the whole absurd and wicked story was promptly met
and fully refuted many years ago at the time of its invention.
Now the fact of the matter is, "this stupid Spaulding story" never has been
squarely met, but that it has been persistently, unscrupulously and most
cunningly dodged by those who have best known its crusging and fatal force. It
is said and it is commonly understood by Mormons, that Sidney Rigdon did meet,
deny and utterly refute this story, or if he did not completely refute, that
Parley Pratt put the final extinguisher upon it. The careful and candid
investigator will find, however, that Mormons have never met the charge; that
persons just named did not meet the charge and answer it, but simply succeeded
in throwing dust and dirt, and in creating a diversion from it. The
stupid story, the wicked story, never can be met and refuted, because it is the
truth. If the Deseret News, or if any Mormon preacher or writer, whoever
they are, fancy themselves in possession of papers sufficient to refute
this story, they either egregiously mistake, or they are wilfully deceiving
themselves and others.
Said Apostle Wilford Woodruff, 12th December, 1880, (See Deseret News
22d February, 1881):
"There
has been a great deal said by our enemies since the organization of
this church concerning Joseph Smith; concerning the Book of Mormon
having been written by Spaulding as a novel; and of this work being a
deception. * * * Let any man take the Book of Mormon and read it
through from beginning to end -- read that history, etc. * * * and let
them ask themselves if they suppose that Solomon Spaulding could sit
down in a corner and write a novel covering these principles? No; they
know better. Any reflecting mind on earth knows very well that the Book
of Mormon never originated from a source of that kind, any more than
they can accuse the Bible of having been brought forth by the same
cause. If one originated from God, the other did.
"It is rather a wonder to the world that an illiterate boy like Joseph
Smith, if he was not taught by the God of Israel and by the spirit of
revelation, could possess the power to bring forth such principles as
are recorded in the Book of Mormon and in the Book of Doctrine and
Covenants and to organize a system of government, a system of religion,
upon the face of the earth, that was far beyond all the combined power
of the whole Christian world. You may take all the learned men of the
earth, all the doctors of divinity, with all the knowledge that they
possess, put them all together, and they had not the power to oeganize
such a church as has been organized by Joseph Smith. * * * There is no
language I ever read in any record given to the human family, that will
compare with the sublimity and power of tehse revelations, given
through that boy, Joseph Smith."
Apostle Wilford Woodruff is a man of advanced years. He appears thoroughly
sincere. Is it possible he has been fooled? Let us see.
The extract just made from his discourse covers, pretty well, the Mormon claim.
In true Mormon fashion it darkens counsel in a haze of contraties. At first,
that an illiterate youth like Joe Smith should have accomplished so much. Surely
this is, as Apostle Woodruff may justly hold, "rather a wonder," were there no
sequel at the heels of all this admiration -- utterly ignoring the real, though
secret, founder and shaper of the Mormon scheme, the not illiterate, the
"heady," self-opinionated, splemetic, envious, unscrupulous, pettifogging
fanatic and master zealot concealed in the background and behind the scenes,
Sidney Rigdon. But when this secret plotter is discovered -- a person
exceptionally versed in the letter of the Bible -- the marvel concerning the
illiterate Joe quickly melts in air. Joe was but the target and figure head. Sir
Oraclke, yes; but only in name and pretense, as this was part of the programme.
De gustibus non est disputandum. That Apostle Woodruff or others sgould
find unapproached sublimity and power in the Mormon revelations -- changed
materially from teh way in which they were first put forth, as taste improved or
exigency demanded, although the average Mormon is not aware of this interesting
fact -- well, there's no accounting for tastes, as the _____ almost any Sam
Wellerism may finish this sentence.
But further, as to Solomon Spaulding, a la Little Jack Horner, sitting in
a corner, etc. The assertion is, and there is evidence enough to substantiate
it, that Sidney Rigdon revised and to a considerable extent rewrote the
"Manuscript Found" of Solomon Spaulding, expanding and converting it from a
unique and harmless religio-historical romance to a blasphemous and tedious
quasi Bible, to be received as of equal validity with veritable history and of
equal authority with Holy Writ.
Woodruff's appeal to "any reflecting mind on earth" is not happy. The Book of
Mormon is one of those dreadful books that must be read and inwardly digested,
if at all, as a religious duty or as a critical study -- a very desert of Sahara
of a book, the oases of relief and satisfaction few and far between. "Young
Utah" can only take the voluminious bosh in broken doses, and then only as
sugared and spiced for them in the columns of the Juvenile Instructor.
But Spaulding should have the credit for whatever of interest is to be found in
the book -- for the oases, though not for the pitfalls. Spaulding was not the
man to blasphemously represent the Savior and "His ministrations upon the land."
Pratt and Woodruff, and their fellow defenders of the divine authenticity of
this Mormon Bible (justly called so) may give either Rigdon or Joe Smith, or
their special and specious Mormon deity full credit for this piece of
blasphemous pretense, so they do exonerate the dacetious but truth loving and
God respecting Spaulding. And it is just at this point that the Book of Mormon
reaches its climax.
It has never been held that the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found of
Spaulding were identical in every detail the one with the
other. It is maintained, and can be controverted, that many of the principal
names and leading incidents, as well as a great amount of the subject matter
being identical, offered conclusive evidence, to any unbiased mind, of the
plagerism, and this substantial identity between the two works is far too well
and solidly authenticated to be "whistled down the mind" by persistently
dwelling upon the differences or minor points, or by any amount of "testimony of
the spirit" (the Mormon strong hold in this as in all other matters of their
faith) that the utterly preposterous claims of the pseudo-Bible can impress any
reasonable, sensible mind.
Spaulding was not (from all accounts) a man to make a corner on the religious
sentiments of his time, however erroneous he may have [calculated] them. Nor did
he get up his work, save by compulsion, in a corner at all. But this whole
iniquitous scheme of Mormonism was done in a corner -- is always operating in a
corner -- binding down the souls and bodies of foolish men and women in a
corner, and this is indeed its chief and patent condemnation, arousing at the
very first blush, the suspicions and hostile thoughts of any reflecting mind.
Secrecy is the great bane of the body politic, of family and neighborly life --
of every human breast. Christ's Gospel is open -- is free. VINDEX.
Note 1: See also the "Vindex" letter to the editor in the Tribune's issue of Apr. 7, 1881
Note 2: The writer of the above article seems to have made little
effort to study the various Mormon responses to proponents of the
Solomon Spalding claims for Book of Mormon authorship. Elder Benjamin
Winchester's 1840 tract offers a substantial, if not especially
convincing, LDS refutation of at least a portion of those claims -- as
does that pamphlet's successors of 1841 and 1843. Similar, but less
extensive, LDS responses were published through the course of many
years, culminating in post-1881 contributions by Edmund Kelley, Joseph
Smith III, George Reynolds, Joseph F. Smith and B. H. Roberts. When
early Mormon "organs" spoke of the Spalding claims as having been
"exploded," they were, of course, speaking of these sorts of in-house
publications intended for the Mormon audience. Not until the final
years of the nineteenth century did Mormon writers seriously believe
that various published refutations had truly "exploded" the Spalding
claims in the opinion of non-Mormons.
Note 3: While it is generally conceded that it is a very difficult
thing to "prove a negative," it is nevertheless a striking fact that
none of the early, topmost Mormon leaders ever attempted to prove the
Spalding claims false. Sidney Rigdon penned a limited and generally
ineffectual response to a small portion of those claims in 1839. His
small contribution was followed by some media manipulations by Parley
P. Pratt and other Mormon leaders, culminating in the 1840 publication
of Winchester's pamphlet. But none of this -- not even all of this put
together -- constituted a reasonable and methodical Latter Day Saint
response to (or explosion of) the threatening alternative authorship
claims. In 1840, Joseph Smith, Jr. visited in the Washington, D. C.,
and his personal physician later stated that Smith then pronounced an
effective curse upon the life of a prominent local minister who was
advocating the Spalding authorship claims (saying that the Book of
Mormon "was nothing but an irreligious romance, and that Smith had
obtained it from the widow of one Spaulding"). If this story is a true
one, it relates the only known response from Smith in the matter --
though Parley P. Pratt gave a fictional Lucifer and a fictional Joseph
Smith scripted lines regarding such "silly fabrications as the
Spaulding Story" in Pratt's equally silly 1845 fabrication, entitled "A
Dialogue Between Joe Smith & the Devil!" Sidney Rigdon, through the
Mormon "organ" in Pittsburgh, promised to refute the "error relative to
the origin of the Book of Mormon as being but the product of one
'Solomon Spaulding'" in June of 1844. Unfortunately, other pressing
business interferred with Rigdon's scheduled refutation and the world
was left unblest by his hopeful explanations. In 1901, the soon-to-be
President of the Mormon Church seemingly put the issue beyond all
disputation, when he pronounced the Spalding authorship claims to be
"the deep-laid schemes of wicked men, inspired by the great enemy of
all truth, in their vain attempts to overthrow the work of God." These
"wicked men" (the earliest proponents of and witnesses for the Spalding
claims) used "slanderous and villainous methods of compassing their
pernicious ends." So, according to this ordained latter day prophet,
seer, revelator and translator (not to mention nephew of the very
founder of the LDS Church), there were "downright falsehoods" in the
"affidavits" given by the Spalding claims witnesses -- those
"determined enemies of the Book of Mormon," who were ever ready "to
bolster up their pet theories and deep-laid schemes to deceive the
world" with any change or development that those alternative authorship
claims might ever seem to require. Well then -- if the Spalding claims
witnesses were such, "wicked men" and minions of the Devil himself
(knowingly or unknowingly), it makes perfect sense that the supreme
leaders of the LDS Church never endeavored to interview them,
investigate their testimony, or publish to the world the results of any
such impartial investigation in an objective report of their own.