Without Disclosing My True Identity
counseled. He knew that something would happen that would allow him to continue to
perform his role, if that was what was required of him; and Timothy had assured him that
his role was not yet complete. The “endowment from on high”^8 was not yet ready for the
people; this last stumbling block needed to be in place before Joseph’s role was finished.
While at the Liberty Jail, Joseph often wrote to Emma, expressing with the deep
emotions that he had for her, that she was his “one and only true friend upon earth.”^9 He
also wrote to the members of the Church who had rallied around the opportunistic
Brigham Young (who gained valuable respect and honor from the members while Joseph,
Hyrum, and Sidney were incarcerated). Joseph wrote letters that warned the members of
the Church from falling under the spell of a single man’s “fanciful and flowery and heated
imagination.”^10 He advised them to have the councils of the Church make the decisions.
As had become the society of Gadiantons^11 in the Book of Mormon, he warned them of “the
impropriety of the organization of bands or companies, by covenants or oaths, by
penalties or secrecies.”^12
Joseph began to doubt himself and Timothy’s promise during his long
imprisonment. The other Brothers were all gone, each to his own mission in other parts of
the world. His attorneys, including Alexander Doniphan, seemed impotent in the face of
Missouri law. The many letters he wrote from jail were an attempt to plead his case and
represent himself to the world in hopes that some kind of relief would come.
For one example, Joseph feigned praise for the U.S. Constitution in some of his
letters, purposefully hoping that patriots would see his words, step in, and protect him
under constitutional law. He tried everything he could, but believed the cause was hopeless.
He knew who was really to blame—his own people. The LDS people never saw themselves
as the cause of their own problems; although hidden in his letters, Joseph had revealed this
fact to them. He became quite eloquent in the way that he told the LDS people that they
“were called, but few were chosen.”^13
As the days wore on in the Liberty Jail, Joseph found himself believing that he had
misunderstood Timothy’s mandate to surrender. He thought that his life and tenure would
end at Liberty or soon thereafter, at a trial he knew that he would lose. In his desperate
moments, Joseph included some things in his letters that he was forbidden to tell the people.
He hinted, for example, that many things were being withheld from the people, that a
time [was] to come in the which nothing [would] be withheld, whether there
be one God or many gods, they [would] be manifest. All thrones and
dominions, principalities and powers, shall be revealed and set forth upon all
who have endured valiantly for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And also if there
be bounds set to the heavens or to the seas, or the dry land, or to the sun,
moon, or stars...according to that which was ordained in the midst of the
Council of the Eternal God of all other gods before this world was.^14Joseph stopped short, however, of explaining the real truth in detail. Even if he had,
the people would have rejected what he told them and claimed that he was a fallen prophet.
The people had hardened their hearts against the “word” and were “given the lesser portion
of the word until they knew nothing concerning his mysteries.”^15 Joseph’s doubts caused
him to take matters into his own hands. On any occasion that presented itself, Joseph and
the others (including Hyrum, Sidney, Lyman Wight, Alexander McRae, and Caleb Baldwin)
attempted to escape from the Liberty Jail to save their own lives.