Today in Mormon History - May 03

[Mailgun Sandbox]

On this day in Mormon History
http://TodayInMormonHistory.com/

-- 180 years ago today - May 3, 1846 --
[Nauvoo Temple]
The third day of dedicatory services, when the "dedication of the Temple closed." The Hancock Eagle reporting that 5,000 persons attended on the third day, which was reserved for the Latter-Day Saints. During these services the Saints approved a resolution to sell the Temple and use the funds to help the poor in their move West. (1)
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[Nauvoo Temple]
... Elder Orson Hyde Arose And Addressed the Assembly from the following words:

... You may wish to know what we have been doing in this house. I will tell you. We have been anointing And ordaining Kings And Priest unto God. I have been Anointed A king & Priest unto God. If any one wishes to kill me for it let them do it.

We have laboured hard to ordain kings & Priest unto God to reign here on the earth but not now, but I will tell you when it will be. When the LORD JESUS CHRIST comes to reign and recieve his Crown And sit upon his Throne. The Twelve Apostles will sit upon there Thrones & Judge the Twelve tribes of Israel. Then is the time we expect to recieve our crown And inherit this earth. We look forward for A new Heaven & earth but it will be the old Concern made gloriously and renewed. Those who have been ordained unto this office will be born at the resurrection in the royal linage. ...

They are now Persecuting us And there Persecutions Are bringing gray hairs upon the Saints but the Heads of the persecutors will be coverd with blackness...

Evry Saint has A guardian Angel with him so death cannot kill him. The Angels accompanied the Ancients. So they do us. The Angels of the waters & there was 4 on the cornors of the earth. When the guardian Angel is called away we are left to grapple with death.

... I feel to resign my citizenship because I Cannot enjoy it. I would Advise all the Saints that they Cast not another vote in this state but resign alloffices that they hold And all our friends to do thesame. ... (2)
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-- 145 years ago today - May 3, 1881 --

May 3 We drove to Franklin. ... W Woodruff spoke 25. ... Also thought that in 1881 there would be an Emigration to Zion from the spirit world of about 10,000 souls, as the Poland Bill of 1862 was not in force in the spirit world these spirits would Come to Zion and take up their abode in the Tabernacles of the Mothers in Zion and in spite of the Poland Bill or the Devil they would be born and some of them would be born in Franklin in Idaho notwithstanding the opposition of Gov M.C. /(How many born in 1881?) ... (2)
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-- 130 years ago today - May 3, 1896 --

Second Counselor in the First Presidency Joseph F. Smith presents the "Political Manifesto" before the Cache Stake Conference, in Logan, Utah. He asks for a show of hands: " I don't want anybody to fail to vote because of fear, or because of any other reason. If they have made up their mind one way or the other, let them manifest, and let us see who are for the authorities of the church and who are not for them." About two-thirds of those present voted. From twenty to twenty-five hands were raised against it. Those voting against it included Moses Thatcher, jr., (son of the Apostle) and wife and others stood up and voted "No."

Heber J. Grant noted that "Prest. [Orson] Smith, in his remarks, stated that it had been claimed that the people of Cache Valley did not sustain this declaration, and it had been intimated that the damned thing was being crowed down the throats of the people, and that he had characterized this statement as a vile slander on the character of the Cache Valley Saints. ..."
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-- 80 years ago today - May 3, 1946 --
[George Albert Smith]
In bed regretting that I am not able to keep my work up at the office. (3)
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-- 60 years ago today - May 3, 1966 --

[Deseret News] Benson told a reporter that he was in "shock" over the committee's proposal. "It's the first I've heard of it," he said. The same newspaper report indicated that "about half of the committee's 30 organizers are members of the Birch Society." (4)
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With Ezra Taft Benson's permission, three weeks after the April 1966 general conference a national committee announced that it was preparing a campaign to elect him U.S. president in 1968. As part of its ten-year plan, this "1976 Committee" nominated Strom Thurmond, conservative U.S. senator from South Carolina, as Benson's vice-presidential running mate.

A former state coordinator wrote that Birch president Robert Welch "was the guiding light behind" this 1976 Committee [to elect Benson president].

National leaders of the Birch Society comprised 59 percent of this committee, including its chair and two vice-chairs. Most other committee members were probably lower-ranking Birchers.

Benson's 1976 Committee was a classic demonstration of Welch's philosophy of creating "fronts"--organizations that merely had the appearance of independence from the Birch Society which formed and directed them.

In effect, the Birch Society was nominating Benson for the White House. (5)
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1 - Brown, Lisle (compiler), Chronology of the Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction of the Nauvoo Temple
2 - Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies
3 - George Albert Smith, Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835-1951, Electronic Edition, 2015
4 - "Presidential Draft for Elder Benson," Deseret News as referenced in Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Write, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press (2005)
5 - "Presidential Draft for Elder Benson?" in Deseret News, 3 May 1966, A-l; "Group Seeks Benson for Race in '68," Salt Lake Tribune, 3 May 1966, 6; "Benson Hints Door Open In '68 Race," Salt Lake Tribune, 4 May 1966, A-14; Dew, Ezra Taft Benson, 383. Also Epstein and Forster, The Radical Right, 53-55,142; Bethke, "BF (Before Falwell), EB (Ezra Benson)," see additional footnotes in Michael Quinn article. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.