Joseph Smith for President

Though Joseph Smith's run for president is now best remembered for ending in his assassination, the renegade campaign was historic in the proposals it put forward. He called for a total abolition of slavery, the closure of the country's penitentiaries, and the reestablishment of a national bank to stabilize the economy. But most important was Smith's call for an expansion of protections for religious minorities. In a time when the Bill of Rights did not apply to individual states, Smith called for the federal government to be empowered to protect minorities when states failed to do so. In this book, Spencer W. McBride tells the story of Smith's campaign and how his calls for religious freedom through constitutional reform are essential to understanding how the American political system evolved to what we know today.