White Horse Prophecy
Rushton's record of Smith's original statement predicts that the US Constitution will one day "hang like a thread" but be saved by Latter-day Saints, "by the efforts of the White Horse.
[6] Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune wrote that from then on, Smith and his followers "considered themselves the last Real Americans" and "the legitimate heirs of the pilgrims and Founding Fathers," who would be called upon one day to save the US Constitution.
[7][8] Smith is believed to have said in 1840 that when the Constitution hung by a thread, Latter Day Saint elders would step in "on the white horse" to save the country.
The most complete copy of Rushton's version of Joseph Smith's statement is contained in a 1902 diary entry made by John Roberts of Paradise, Utah.
That rendering asserted that in his statement, Smith had prophesied that the Mormons "will go to the Rocky Mountains and will be a great and mighty people established there, which I will call the White Horse of peace and safety."
Smith added "I shall never go there" and predicted continued persecution by enemies of the church, and he reportedly said, "You will see the Constitution of the United States almost destroyed.
The account quotes Smith as predicting numerous wars involving Great Britain, France, Russia, China, and other countries, and saying that the European nobility "knows that [Mormonism] is true, but it has not pomp enough, and grandeur and influence for them to yet embrace it."
"[9] In 1844, Smith rejected the platforms of the major candidates for president of the United States and decided to conduct his own third-party campaign[4][10] which was cut short by his murder on June 27 that year.
"[5] Also in 2010, Latter-day Saint historian Don L. Penrod examined significant differences in two early handwritten accounts of the prophecy, noted some words and phrases that were not characteristic of Joseph Smith's speaking style or current in his time, and speculated that Rushton had "in his elderly years recorded some things that [Smith] actually said, mixing in words of his own creation."
[8][15] In 1855, Brigham Young wrote that "when the Constitution of the United States hangs, as it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the 'Mormon' Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it.
"[19] Then again in general conference in 1941 he says, "If our rights expire in a convulsion, the body politic now being slowly drugged by the opiate of a borrowed prosperity, will suffer a major financial operation, which will cause the death of the world's greatest democracy; and the vultures and the buzzards of some foreign "ism" will be waiting the moment to step in and devour the carcass" and then refers to the Brigham Young prophecy.
"[21] In a 1986 Brigham Young University speech, Ezra Taft Benson, then president of the LDS Church, stated, "I have faith that the Constitution will be saved as prophesied by Joseph Smith.
"[26] In 2007, US presidential candidate Mitt Romney, George's son, told the Salt Lake Tribune, "I haven't heard my name associated with [the White Horse Prophecy] or anything of that nature.
"[27][26] Conservative media figure Glenn Beck, who joined the LDS Church in 1999, has alleged that President Barack Obama "is going to bring us to the verge of shredding the Constitution, of massive socialism.
"[30] In 2009, Idaho gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell announced plans to hold a series of meetings with believing Mormon men, which were to include discussion of the White Horse Prophecy.
