why would anyone want to be president of the United States? Joseph Smith knew. Spencer McBride's biography of a unique political moment unfolds in Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom. Harvesting an impressive cache of primary source material and dynamic new analysis, McBride uses Smith's unlikely presidential run to investigate the political and religious systems of the day.
Inequality abounded in early America, and at some point, Smith tasted nearly all of it. He experienced poverty, intolerance, defamation, and the appalling inaction of a Congress too polarized to protect the citizens who lived, literally and figuratively, on the extreme margins of democracy. In response to the federal government's shortcomings, Smith crafted a radical platform. He pledged to abolish slavery, close the jails, reintroduce a national bank, shrink Congress, protect religious minorities, and expand westward only after securing Native American cooperation....
