"Are the Mormons abolitionists?" "No.....we do not believe in setting the Negroes free." (Joseph Smith Jr., May 8, 1838, Far West, Missouri, "Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith," p. 118.)

"Slaves are real estate in this and other states, and wisdom would dictate great care among the branches of the church of Christ on this subject. So long as we have no special rule in the church as to people of color, let prudence guide; and while they, as well as we, are in the hands of a merciful god, we say: shun every appearance of evil."

"Our intention was not only to stop free people of color from emigrating to this state, but to prevent them from being admitted as members of the church. Great care should be taken on this point. The saints must shun every appearance of evil. As to slaves we have nothing to say. In connection with the wonderful events of this age, much is doing towards abolishing slavery, and colonizing the blacks in Africa. We often lament the situation of our sister states in the south, and we fear, lest, as has been the case, the blacks should rise and spill innocent blood: for they are ignorant, and a little may lead them to disturb the peace of society. To be short, we are opposed to have free people of color admitted into the state; and we say, that none will be admitted into the church, for we are determined to obey the laws and constitutions of our country....."

• Phelps' original comment was his own, and was not sanctioned by church leaders
• Phelps quickly retracted his misunderstood statement in his next edition
• Joseph Smith himself stated "We do not believe in setting the Negroes free" and "We are not abolitionists"
• Joseph Smith produced the "Book of Moses" and the "Book of Abraham," which have been used as the basis for discrimination against Negroes by Mormons into modern times; Negroes were not actively proselyted nor encouraged to join the LDS church until 1978
• Several Mormons owned slaves, including Apostle Charles C. Rich
• The Utah Territory was slated to become the next slave state, to counter California's admittance as a free state; but the Civil War ended slavery, and the Mormons' rebelliousness and refusal to end polygamy prevented Utah's admittance as a state until 1896.
• Church leaders, particularly Brigham Young, made numerous statements supportive of Negro slavery; Young declared that Negroes were "decreed of God" to be the servants of the white race until God himself removed the "curse," and Young "prophesied" that the Civil War would not free the slaves.

"The Mormons were partly responsible for causing, or at least reinforcing, the suspicions and prejudice against them. Their claims about establishing the Kingdom of God in Jackson County, that they would 'literally tread upon the ashes of the wicked after they are destroyed from off the face of the earth,' excited fears that the Mormons intended to obtain their 'inheritance' by force. According to Thomas Thorp, a Clay County resident, the Mormons told local settlers that 'this country was theirs [the Mormons'] by the gift of the Lord, and it was folly for them [the Missourians] to improve their lands, they would not enjoy the fruits of their labor; that it would finally fall into the hands of the saints.' In July 1832, a Mormon journal in Independence published a Joseph Smith revelation in which the Lord declared that 'I will consecrate the riches of the Gentiles [non-Mormons], unto my people which are of the house of Israel.' " "The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri," Stephen LeSueur, p. 18.)

1. Joseph Smith had already taught his "plural marriage" concept in his 1831 "revelation" commanding a group of married men to "take ye wives from among the Lamanites" in 1831 (the tarring occurred in February 1832). This indicates that he had extra-marital relations on his mind during that period.
2. Joseph Smith eventually "plural married" Marinda in April of 1842, after sending her husband, Orson Hyde, on a mission. (Marinda later said she thought Smith was the father of her son, Frank.) Thus, it is likely that Smith had his eye on Marinda since he had met the 15-year-old girl at Hiram in 1831, and that his 1842 "plural marriage" to her was his formalization of a long-existing desire for her (as it was also in the documented cases of Mary Rollins and Sarah Ann Whitney). The essence of Smith's "spiritual wifery" concept was that people knew each other in the "pre-existence," and that part of their earthly mission was to find their "soul mates" (Remember "Saturday's Warrior?") Once Smith had designated a female as one of his "soul mates," or "spiritual wives," they were to be "his" for eternity, even if they were already married to someone else; in this case, Orson Hyde.
3. Third, Smith's "plural" relationship with the 16-year-old Fanny Alger began in 1833. Since the 1832 tarring incident occurred between the 1831 marry-the-Lamanite-girls revelation and the 1833 beginning of his affair with Fanny, it's entirely likely that the tarring was at least partly because of Smith's budding unorthodox sexual concepts, which he tried out on fifteen year-old Marinda.
4. Fourth, it seems more likely that Marinda's brothers would want to castrate a man because of a sexual advance on their teenage sister, rather than over an issue of money.
5. The mob of church members that attacked Rigdon and Smith that night did not attempt to castrate Rigdon. Smith was the sole target of castration by Marinda's brothers.

"..."The LDS Church has suffered greater religious persecution in its history than any other religious group in American history," said Harvard law professor Noah Feldman, a practicing Jew. "For a member of the LDS Church to be elected president, or honestly even just to come close, would represent in some important way a repudiation of (anti-Mormon) prejudice."

"And make no mistake about it," Feldman warned, "that prejudice is real."

Prejudice against Mormons began when their founding prophet and president, Joseph Smith, claimed heavenly visions in upstate New York. Subsequently, he and his followers were driven from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois. After Smith's violent death in Illinois, more persecution prompted a mass exodus to the Salt Lake Valley. The flight to the Utah Territory didn't stay American prejudice; it continued with the Utah War and the Edmunds-Tucker Act, which dictated the incarceration of polygamists and the federal confiscation of Church land.

Even after Utah's incorporation as a state in 1896, the U.S. House of Representatives still refused to seat the recently elected Mormon, B.H. Roberts. In the early twentieth century American-Mormon relations began to turn a corner, but only after Reed Smoot's Congressional hearings. Reed Smoot (a Mormon Apostle) was elected to the U.S. senate in 1903, yet his seating faced a three-year-long Congressional debate that included a three-day-long interrogation of Mormon Prophet Joseph F. Smith.

Smoot's distinguished thirty-year career in the senate, along with other 20th century developments, eventually helped assuage Mormonphobia by showing Americans that the LDS Church was, by most accounts, a benign institution...."