Theodemocracy
"[3] Smith wrote in 1842 that earthly governments "have failed in all their attempts to promote eternal peace and happiness.... [Even the United States] is rent, from center to circumference, with party strife, political intrigues, and sectional interest.
[7] Smith stated in May 1844, "I calculate to be one of the instruments of setting up the kingdom of Daniel by the word of the Lord, and I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the world....
[11][12] However, in a theodemocratic system, God was to be the ultimate power and would give law to the people, who would be free to accept or reject, presumably based on republican principles.
Full consensus was required for the Council to pass any measures, and each participant was commanded to fully speak their minds on all issues brought before the body.
"[15] Although theodemocracy was envisioned as a unifying force that would minimize faction, it should not be viewed as a repudiation of the individualistic principles underlying American liberalism.
Civil and ecclesiastical governments were meant to retain their individual and divided spheres of power in a theodemocratic system, but leaders of the Church would have important and even dominant secular roles within the political superstructure.
[1] It is also clear that the concept lay behind his organization of the Council of Fifty that same year, but it is uncertain whether Smith believed that he could or should form a functioning theodemocratic government before the advent of the Second Coming and the destruction of worldly political systems.
Such an arrangement may reflect the Mormon history of persecution, with the form of the Nauvoo government developing as a practical self-defense mechanism, rather than as an absolute theological preference.
Suspicions about Mormon rule in Nauvoo, combined with misunderstandings about the role of the Council of Fifty, resulted in hyperbolic rumors about Smith's "theocratic kingdom."
That, in turn, added to the growing furor against the Latter Day Saints in Illinois and eventually led to Smith's assassination in June 1844 and the Mormons' expulsion from the state in early 1846.
[19] Even before coining the term "theodemocracy," Smith's teachings about a political Kingdom of God had caused friction with non-Mormons, even before the Nauvoo period.
The second was the political kingdom described by Daniel, a theodemocratic polity that would one day be fully organized and, once initiated, would "protect every person, every sect, and all people upon the face of the whole earth, in their legal rights.
When Smith was arrested in connection with the Mormon War of 1838, he was closely questioned by the presiding judge on whether he believed in the kingdom that would subdue all others as described in the Book of Daniel.
Nauvoo was governed by a combination of church leaders and friendly non-Mormons who had been elected to serve in civil office might mark the city as a theodemocracy in embryo.
[24] Mormon belief in an imminent Second Coming continued throughout the 19th century, and the expectation of the violent self-destruction of governments seemed to be confirmed by such events as the American Civil War.
That, in turn, would require the Latter-day Saints to bring order to the resultant chaos and to "save the Constitution" by implementation of a true theodemocracy.
By the turn of the 20th century, Mormon expectations of an imminent Apocalypse had largely dissipated, and Utah's admission to the Union in 1896 required the removal of the last vestiges of theodemocracy from the local government.
Mormons still believe that the Kingdom of God maintains the bifurcated definition espoused by Brigham Young, with both church and millennial government, but its political implications are now rarely alluded to.
