Storming the Nation

Book excerpt: This book uncovers the significant but previously unknown contributions of the electioneers of Joseph Smith's 1844 presidential campaign. The focus is the cadre of over six-hundred political missionaries-who they were before the campaign, their activities and experiences as electioneers, and who they became following the campaign's untimely collapse. It narrates the important and even crucial contributions they made in the succession crisis, the exodus from the United States, and the building of Zion in the Great Basin. Importantly, it describes how their campaigning with the Quorum of Twelve Apostles using theodemocratic themes, coupled with the shock of Joseph Smith's assassination, steeled and subsequently spurred many of them into effective religious, political, social, and economic leaders-leaders who shaped Latter-day Saint history.