I’ve been very seriously kicking around the idea of writing an introductory/summary book — maybe 120 pages + 20 pages of charts and such, so that there is an accessible, narrative overview. That would be similar to the very brief intro I gave at this conference, but obviously more detailed. If that gets to the head of the queue, that might be available relatively soon. We’ll see.

I would have to nominate myself for worst question during the Q and A period. I thought van Wagenen gave the most interesting presentation of the day, but was underused in the panel discussion since the Wightites didn’t last. So I tossed him a question about Joseph Smith’s platform about freeing the slaves and giving them their own land to act as a buffer between the United States and Mexico. However I phrased it badly and didn’t have a source handy to clarify so van Wagenen didn’t know what I was talking about.

Someone in the back came close, but not quite. So I spent a few minutes yesterday tracing my source down, which I became aware of by reading Connell O’Donovan’s article on Walker Lewis.

He writes:

When Smith campaigned for president as a Jeffersonian Democrat in the spring and summer of 1844, it was on a platform that included a plan to abolish slavery by 1850 by compensated emancipation “for a reasonable price”, through the sale of public lands; the resulting freed slaves would then be settled in Texas.[69]

And later:

At a meeting at the Nauvoo Temple on March 7, 1844, William W. Phelps, a member of the Council of the Fifty sitting on Joseph Smith’s “central campaign committee”, read General Smith’s Views and Smith was “unanimously, with one exception” nominated as a candidate for President of the United States. Explaining his views on slavery and westward expansion, Smith said that he would free the slaves from a few states, compensate their owners, annex Texas, and settle the freed slaves in Texas, where they would act as a buffer of human flesh against the British, who were also attempting to gain control of Texas:

“British officers are now running all over Texas to establish British influence in that country…. It will be more honorable for us to receive Texas and set the negroes free, and use the negroes and Indians against our foes….How much better it is for the nation to bear a little expense than to have the Indians and British upon us and destroy us all…. The South holds the balance of power. By annexing Texas, I can do away with this evil. As soon as Texas was annexed, I would liberate the slaves in two or three States, indemnifying [i.e. compensating] their owners, and send the negroes to Texas, and from Texas to Mexico, where all colors are alike. And if that was not sufficient, I would call upon Canada, and annex it.[74]“

I went and read the sources that O’Donovan refers to. The platform pamphlet “General Smith’s Views . . .” doesn’t promote the idea to create an Freed slave buffer state in Texas, but the discussion on March 7, 1844, does. See http://www.boap.org/LDS/History/History_of_the_Church/Vol_VI

So that idea shows that Joseph Smith was thinking like Sam Houston was, only on the contingency that Joseph made a successful bid for the Presidency, the freed slaves and not the Mormons would settle and defend the territory between the Rio Grande and Neuces River.