I see no reason to accept the view of people who had reasons to go after the character of a man who never did show violence, at any time. Especially when his accusers have included accusations that Law was at Carthage with the mob, but there is sound evidence he was not. JS on the other hand, was known for his character assassinations, real and threatened, of anyone who opposed him in any way. This includes William Law. You are clearly on board with this behavior yourself.
Rebecca, have I ever threatened you in any way, or even treated you with discourtesy? Yet you are constantly going straight to the ad hominem–and this one is a particularly nasty version.
You know that I have never accused Law of being physically with the mob. In fact, I was the one here on the board that TOLD you that; he was in Carthage earlier in the day, but not with the mob itself. There were a great many accusations flying around at the time of the murders, as there are around any crime newly committed. Some were pretty wild, some turned out to be accurate. There was some speculation at that time that Law was with the mob, but that was very soon dispelled, and you will not find anybody who claims that he was actually with the mob now, or indeed during Law’s lifetime. He was cleared of that very early on.
The fact is, however, William Law was overheard plotting to kill Joseph and Hyrum as he met with the group he formed, called “the Conspirators.”
The story behind the meetings during which these plots were hatched is entertaining…and when you get past the florid verbiage that the writers of that time were wont to use (so contagious is it that you can’t help using it to describe it!) that the facts of it are pretty clear. Law and his wife, who were upset about the polygamy thing…and the fact that Law was about to lose a whole bunch of money, called a bunch of people together who were equally upset at Joseph; they didn’t like what was happening and they wanted to change or stop it.
As was very usual in that time, the rhetoric surrounding the meetings of 'The Conspirators" was florid and extreme, full of blood oaths and extravagant accusations a declarations. Everybody there was mad at Joseph for some reason; some because of polygamy, some because Joseph was running for President and it was actually starting to look good for him (which, by the way, startled and unnerved Joseph, who figured that he was a classical third party thorn, not having any real chance at things…the LAST thing the man wanted to actually do was WIN that election!) Some for other reasons.
The point is, everybody at those meetings was out for blood, figuratively if not literally. According to the boys who reported these meetings, and accounting for their bias as frightened teenagers who thought they were playing spy and found out that it was a little too real for them, the plots were humming thick and fast. THEY described it as the wickedness of evil men…I read it as a bunch of people who were expressing frustration and anger, and whose extravagant threats were more for show than substance; they couldn’t get organized enough to figure out what they wanted to do, much less organize the doing of it, for at least three meetings.
When the boys were found out, because they wouldn’t sign a paper saying that they would devote their lives, money and honor to encompassing the death of Joseph, they were threatened, taken out of the meeting, (ostensibly to find a place to slit their throats quietly) but escaped when the place they were taken to turned out to be the local ‘lovers lane’ (occupied). So they were threatened with their lives and let go.
Now to me all that says two things: one, that Law and Co. were plotting Joseph’s demise, whether political, economical or physical. Two, that the threats were more metaphorical than literal, as is seen by the paper they were asked to sign and the way the boys were treated. There is no way that the men escorting the boys out of the meeting did NOT know that the riverbank was going to be full of young lovers at that time of the evening. In other words, they were given a good scare and told to go home before their daddies missed them. Of course, part of that scare was that if anybody ever heard about the meetings, that THEY were going to be targets.
I believe that this is why Joseph and the rest of the council did not arrest Law for this…because "the Conspirators’ broke up almost immediately after this; the steam had been blown off a bunch of inept idiots. I mean, really…“The Conspirators???” . On the other hand, Law was the founder and leader of the Conspirators, and he, unlike the rest of the group, kept going.
…and he himself admitted that he was in Carthage on the day of the attack. It has long been suspected, with fairly good reason, that he was a behind the scenes actor in it.
I have never heard, or seen, anybody accusing Law of being with the mob, because as you have mentioned, he was elsewhere at the time of the attack. He WAS, according to his own admission (his diary) in Carthage that morning having meetings with men who WERE in the mob. We don’t know what was said during those meetings, however, or what their purpose was.
In that diary he was rather like you and some others on this board…well, at least in one respect. He at least expressed outrage at Joseph’s murder (rather hypocritical of him given that he had plotted to kill the man himself less than three months earlier…) but then went on to say that as a minion of Satan who was attempting to give the world back to his master, he deserved what he got.
I haven’t seen much outrage expressed here, but certainly a great deal of smug “well, he brought it on himself and deserved it so that’s all right” makes its appearance on this forum.
