In 1844, Joseph Smith, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ran for president of the United States. At the April 1844 LDS general conference, a call was made for volunteers to “electioneer for Joseph to be the next President,” as Heber C. Kimball put it. Immediately, 244 elders volunteered. By the time the list of names was recorded in the records of the Church a week later, the number approached 340. Even more elders eventually volunteered or were called to take up the cause. As part of the campaign, the Quorum of the Twelve scheduled public political conferences in each state. These conferences were to be attended by members of the Twelve and the electioneers during the campaign.

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While many of the electioneers gave political addresses and distributed copies of Joseph Smith’s platform, in the main, their activities did more to strengthen the Church than to present the Prophet to the nation as a presidential candidate.

Campaigning Efforts

One of the purposes of the campaign made plain by the activities of the electioneers was to put forward their prophet as a candidate for the presidency of the United States. The electioneers held political conferences and made an effort to present and distribute Joseph’s platform, which was published in the pamphlet Views of the Power and Policy of the Government of the United States (hereafter called Views). This platform included such measures as abolition through the federal government purchasing slaves with the revenue from the sale of public lands; prison reform; unity as a nation; a national bank; the annexation of Texas, California, and Oregon; and the expansion of federal power.

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Proselytizing Activities

The electioneers did much more than merely campaign for Joseph Smith: one of the purposes of the candidacy, which becomes obvious from the journals of the campaigners, was to proselytize. By their own accounts, campaigning seemed secondary in comparison to the amount of time they devoted to preaching.

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Conclusion: The Campaign and the Kingdom

The number of electioneers and the “political” conferences called by the Twelve in 1844 have been repeatedly used as evidence that Joseph Smith fully expected to obtain the presidential chair and that the electioneers’ purpose therefore was to ensure this outcome. But as has been demonstrated, the electioneers did not focus primarily on Joseph Smith’s candidacy, for most of their political rallies were not fundamentally political. . .