The prophet who ran for president.(Flashback)

Q: Who was the first U.S. Presidential candidate to be assassinated? The folks in the best position to win this toughest of all bar bets are, alas, usually absent from the bar. They are the Mormons, and the answer to this question is none other than Joseph Smith, "The Prophet," founder of their faith and independent candidate for the Presidency in 1844.

Smith biographer Fawn Brodie denies that his candidacy was motivated by "pre-posterous megalomania." Rather, Smith seems to have run for the more mundane reason of defending his flock. Unable to obtain redress at the federal level for the Mormon persecutions in Missouri, Smith called states rights "a stink offering in the nose of the Almighty" and demanded protection from Washington.

In November 1843 he asked the leading candidates for President, Henry Clay, John Calhoun, Richard Johnson, Lewis Cass, and Martin Van Buren, "What will be your rule of action relative to us as a people should fortune favor your ascendancy to the chief magistracy?"

In best strict construction fashion, none gave him satisfaction. Clay offered the example of "my whole life, character and conduct" as pledge that he would treat the Mormons justly, to which Smith replied, "Your 'whole life, character and conduct' have been spotted with deeds that cause a blush upon the face of a virtuous patriot; so you must be contented with your lot, while crime, cowardice, cupidity or low cunning have handed you down from the high tower of a statesman to the black hole of a gambler."

A Smith-Clay alliance seemed doubtful.

Declaring, "We have as good a right to make a political party to gain power to defend ourselves as for demagogues to make use of our religion to get power to destroy us," Joseph Smith launched an independent candidacy for President.

Smith set out his views in a curious eight-page document which Mormon missionaries distributed throughout the country. His platform blended pique and prophecy, the quotidian and the exotically idealistic. Angry that Congress had not responded to Mormon cries for help, he pledged to ...