06-13-2008, 01:26 PM | #1 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: The People's Republic of Monsanto
Posts: 3,085
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Mormon History Post: Special Edition
An excerpt of "Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government."
Written by W.W. Phelps according to Joseph Smith's direction (Joseph dictated points to Phelps in the last part of January, 1844, Phelps wrote the document, and it was printed in February, 1844 by John Taylor). This document was eventually included in "The Voice of Truth," by General Joseph Smith (which is mostly comprised of documents dictated by Smith to Phelps). BYU has the 1845 printing that includes the King Follett Sermon in the appendix, but does not, to my knowledge, have the 1844 printing. I have a reprint of the 1844 printing. The 1844 printing of "Views" was used as a tract by 300+ "missionaries," who were commissioned to Joseph's campaign. Here is Joseph Smith's "plank" on imprisonment (Phelps is responsible for spelling and grammar): "Petition your state legislatures to pardon every convict in their several penitentiaries: blessing them as they go, and saying to them in the name of the Lord, go thy way and sin no more. Advise your legislators when they make laws for larceny, burglary or any felony, to make the penalty applicable to work upon roads, public works, or any place where the culprit can be taught more wisdom and more virtue; and become more enlightened. Rigor and seclusion will never do as much to reform the propensities of man, as reason and friendship. Murder only can claim confinement or death. Let the penitentiaries be turned into seminaries of learning, where intelligence, like the angels of heaven, would banish such fragments of barbarism: imprisonment for debt is a meaner practice than the savage tolerates with all his ferocity. 'Amor vincit omnia.' Love conquers all."
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"Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; " 1 Thess. 5:21 (NRSV) We all trust our own unorthodoxies. Last edited by Sleeping in EQ; 06-13-2008 at 01:49 PM. |
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