ELEVEN
(1816)
The contrasting personalities and influences of Joseph’s family members provided him with a balance that prepared
him for his future role. Environmental influences and the subtle direction of Timothy (one of the “Three Nephites”)
helped prepare Joseph’s family for a move to Palmyra, New York, near where the gold plates were buried.The arrogance of Freemasonry wasn’t the only thing the young Joseph confronted
during his youth. He needed other important experiences that would help him develop into
a messenger who would later attempt to expose the male ego for what it really was: the
cause of all of humanity’s problems.
Political Contentions
While the government of the United States was experiencing its first few decades of
“freedom,” the new representative democracy (or republic; nevertheless, a government
ostensibly led by the people for the people^1 ) was often the subject of discussion between 19th
century adults. The young Joseph would often sit silent for hours listening to his father and
his pugnacious older brother, Alvin, hash out the details of politics with other men. Joseph
Sr., though far from ignorant, was somewhat more naïve than his oldest son when it came to
“seeing the forest through the trees.”^2
Alvin held the U.S. government and its wealthy lawmakers in disgust and
contempt, while Joseph Sr. remained convinced that a “divine force” had had its hand
in the government’s development (despite his lack of confidence in organized
religion). It has been discussed already how many of the Founding Fathers eschewed
religion because of its more superstitious and irrational approaches to the spiritual
nature of man and the Universe. However, many, including Thomas Jefferson, were
considered deists^3 in their approach to God and there were virtually none who did not
believe in a certain “providence,”^4 “Father of Lights,”^5 “Creator,”^6 “Nature’s God,”^7 or
other type of “deity”^8 having an unseen hand in the affairs of man.
During one burst of emotion after his father had failed to be accepted as a
Mason, Alvin ridiculed the ignorance of his father by pointing out the fact that he
(Joseph Sr.) wasn’t even allowed to vote for the men who made the laws and ran the
government. Alvin often referred to democracy in America (meaning the power to
participate in an election as a “citizen” with a [right to] vote) as a “goldocracy.” It made
no sense to Alvin why only white male property owners who resided on their property
for a certain amount of time (about 10 percent of the nation’s population at the time)
had the right to vote. For most of Alvin’s short life, his father seldom owned his own
property and, therefore, could not vote.
This was also one of the main contentions that Lucy had with her husband. Being
allowed to vote carried a certain social status at the time. “Is your husband of the vote?” was
a phrase often interchanged between women upon their initial greeting. More often than
not, Lucy was embarrassed as she answered, “No, not yet.”