E85: The Quincy Convention

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:12)
The three years following Joseph Smith's death weren't exactly fun for Mormons. Have we mentioned that? You'd think murdering two men and severely wounding another would satiate the hatred many people had against the Mormons. You know, guys, it's gone far enough. Why don't we just stop attacking the Mormons and let's figure out better ways to float the Mississippi River?
No, oh boy, things were not settling down.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:35)
This is a crazy time in Mormon history. The church was breaking up, new prophets are popping up and stealing sheep and starting becoming primate imperials on islands. And the pesky government kept trying to arrest people for the crimes Joseph Smith had been involved with when he was alive. There wasn't a month that went by when some writ of arrest wasn't issued for a Mormon elder or someone called in to be questioned about destroying printing presses and the like.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:03)
If anything, the murder of Joseph Smith and his brother Hiram only gave neighboring counties around Nauvoo confidence they were finally getting justice against their Mormon neighbors. They felt they were lying, dishonest, peculiar villains. They're finally making some progress.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:16)
For the Mormons part, that and the general anxiety over the fact that their leaders had been, I don't know, violently murdered at the hands of vigilante justice meant that it was time for the Mormons to leave their homes once again. Even when Joseph Smith was alive, the writing was sort of on the wall and their days were numbered in Nauvoo.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:35)
Yep. In February 1844, before he's murdered in Carthage, Joseph Smith had the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles meet to discuss organizing a surveying committee to explore settlement options for the saints. William Clayton noted in the meeting minutes that the brethren, quote, agreed to look to some place where we can go and establish a theocracy, either in Texas or Oregon or somewhere in California.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:56)
Can I just say something about that? That they're just bold about the theocracy. They'll be like, our rights as American citizens and religious freedom, but we just want to start a theocracy. That's our right as an American citizen.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:09)
I love that sometimes they call it a theodemocracy because that makes it a lot better.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:15)
Very American.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:16)
And now get ready for every time you hear Upper California to hear the ghost of John Taylor singing because he composed the song during one of these planning meetings when he should have been paying attention.
And honestly, it was such a hit. They sing it a lot over the next three years. You will get multiple diaries that record many, many verses of this song.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:37)
And it's funny because it's like, and so and so, brothers, so and so, stop the meeting to regale us with a verse of the Upper California.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:45)
And now Lindsay is going to sing it for us.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:48)
The Upper California. No, the Upper California was some nebulous, far away hope for the Mormons who knew that they had to get out of Nauvoo and get out soon. But singing about Upper California was one thing. Getting 12,000 people out of Nauvoo over the course of one spring would prove to be a whole different basket of apples.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:17)
A word from our friend's signature books.
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