Though Mormonism after Joseph Smith isn’t my expertise, I do think that a story that demonstrates conflict in church leaders’ tendency to appoint the church’s best administrators into the first presidency is the attempted “coup” against Wilford Woodruff in 1887. I put coup in quotes since some may object to that term, but it seems in the ballpark to me (more below).

I don’t know how well known the story is, and I’ll get to it in a bit, but first, I want to recap a bit and attempt to define my terms a little better. RLD pointed out that my definitions were too vague, and he’s certainly correct.

So a recap: Brigham Young often said he was not a prophet, and I think that’s right. I view the church after Jospeh Smith as being led by caretakers of Joseph Smith’s visions and program and appreciate that very much. Young was very loyal to Smith and wanted to carry on his vision. That’s something I’m on board with too and appreciate Young’s and all the other church leaders’ service.

On the issue of what and who is a prophet is church history, I’d say that’s tricky and not something that I would declare in any absolute sense. I agree with Hugh Nibley’s claim that “prophecy is a gift not an office.” Nibley pointed to Eliza R. Snow as “one of the greatest prophets we’ve ever had in the church,” and I noted that I viewed Nibley as something as a prophet at well. Not an office, but those with important messages for the church that is run by ecclesiastical leaders, but not leaders that are prophets by their office.

In terms of prophets among the leaders, I’d just point out that Young often pointed to Heber C. Kimball as one who would often prophesy and that fact that John Taylor claimed to receive lots of revelations. But just to repeat, no revelations from Kimball or Taylor have been canonized and one of Taylor’s is viewed as being highly problematic.

I view the prophet role more in line with my quote from Nibley, and view prophecy as a bit amorphous. I see Joseph Smith’s role as prophet leader as kind of unusual, and that more often, and mostly in our history, we have priestly religious leaders who oversee the religion, with disparate prophetic voices with messages we ought to listen to.

My sense is that calling new apostles does fit the pattern Joseph F. Smith described in his congressional testimony (see the comment from Davek in that link): the leaders pick among possible candidates that they feel are the best. The leaders are good and experienced people and pick good people.

In our church’s history, great administrators often get put in the First Presidency, and I see the Woodruff story I’m about to tell as highlighting that tendency. But it happens a lot. I see something of a division between “churchmen” leaders who aren’t the great administrators and those who are. No doubt there can be overlap between the great administrators and the more “regular” churchmen.

Heber J. Grant was one of the ultimate administrators in church history and President Taylor recognized his talent, calling Grant as an apostle in 1882, when Grant was only 25. Grant had already become a leading businessman in SLC and had been appointed as a stake president three years before. No apostle has been called as young as Grant since Grant’s calling, though John W. Taylor was close at 26.

Joseph F. Smith wasn’t the businessman or administrator that Grant was, but he impressed church leaders and was called as an apostle in 1866 at age 28. Smith would fit the definition of a “churchman” that the other church leaders greatly admired and served in several First Presidencies.

Both Grant and Smith stood out during the attempted Woodruff coup, and both would become presidents of the church. Being call called so young certainly increased their chances of becoming church president.

The Woodruff “coup” centered around an eminent “churchman,” Woodruff, the senior apostle after Taylor’s death, and the Mormons’ leading administrator at the time, George Q. Cannon. My information comes from Ronald Walker’s, “Grant’s Watershed: Succession in the Presidency, 1887-1889,” in Qualities that Count: Heber J. Grant as Businessman, Missionary, and Apostle (Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 2004): 195-229.

Led by Moses Thatcher, and strongly supported Heber J. Grant, a group of younger apostles sought to replace Woodruff with a younger more vibrant leader because they worried that Woodruff as a sweet old man would simply hand over the administration of the church to Cannon, whom many of the apostles had concerns about.

Cannon had been Taylor’s first counselor and concerns about Cannon grew during Taylor’s presidency. The Cannon critics felt Cannon was too aspiring, wasn’t always open about church finance which led to concerns, and Cannon had a problematic son that the critics felt Cannon didn’t properly rein in.

The “insurrectionists” first tried to talk Woodruff into stepping down, which he politely refused. Then they sought a replacement for Woodruff but struggled to find one. Erastus Snow had similar concerns about Woodruff and Cannon but refused to accept the role as replacement. The insurrectionists really liked Joseph F. Smith, but Smith was in Hawaii and they were unsure if he would agree (probably not).

Failing at finding a replacement, the insurrectionists sought to demand that Woodruff kick Cannon out of the First Presidency, which Woodruff also refused to do. Instead, Woodruff held a number of meetings with the apostles and Cannon, in which Cannon made several apologies.

Eventually, with their options at an end, all the apostles signed off on Woodruff as the new president of the church and for him to reconstitute the First Presidency, at which point he called Cannon as his first councilor. But this resolution didn’t happen until two years after Taylor’s death.

To me, the episode suggests that Cannon as the most able administrator was not the most respected “churchman.” Apparently, at that time, that was Joseph F. Smith. Cannon had great ability that the church needed, but his conduct raised some doubt among his fellow church leaders. Thus I see Cannon, Woodruff, and JF Smith as fitting different leadership types that were in tension in this episode.

Thatcher would eventually get kicked out of the 12 for another act of insubordination. Grant, of course, became the second longest serving church president, second only to Young. Grant later felt so bad about the attempted “coup” against Woodruff that he removed several pages from that time period from his journals.

Thus I see the attempted “coup’” as a very interesting episode in church history, and in my next post, I’ll talk about Matt Harris’s book Second Class Saints, and a couple of important church leaders that loom large in maintaining the priesthood ban in the mid-twentieth century who were called by JF Smith and Grant.