Joseph Smith Jr. Quotes
I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer's morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men. I shall die innocent, and it shall be said of me-He was murdered in cold blood
Smith, Joseph. The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981, sec. 135:4.
John Brown, in a futile effort to start a slave insurrection, raided the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry. His raid failed and he was captured and hanged. However, he became a martyr to the abolitionist movement, and his death is still sung of gloriously to this day. See {584889} and {604003}.
His comment was particularly critical since he had been an early supporter of the military takeover of the government. See {595250}.
Later, in 1973, he himself was denounced and sentenced to the guillotine. When he was sentenced, hecklers asked him if his blood was too pure for execution throwing his quotation back at him.
This is one of the sharpest dissents in Supreme Court history. Rarely to justices write opinions accusing other justices of a gross immorality or crime. The majority held that the Supreme Court should not grant a new trial simply because there was some evidence discovered showing him innocent. See {635412} for a quotation from the majority opinion.
Joseph Smith, Jr. was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was twenty-four, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death fourteen years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religious culture that continues to the present.
