Why were the Mormons persecuted in the United States?

Poor Joseph Smith had the misfortune of founding a religion in the age of the printing press.

In PBS' documentary on the Mormons there is a really poignant line. Jeffrey Holland, who was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, states "Our people knew what it was like to be hated." The Mormons were the only religious group that had an extermination order issued (in Missouri in 1838), and the threat of the Mormons played a role in the organization of the Republican Party. Now, why were Mormons hated? I'm going to outline several points.

Polygamy was a big factor. Some Mormons engaged in a sexual practice that was seen deviant and against Jacksonian democratic principles. However, as Terryl Givens points out in his Viper on the Hearth, polygamy lacks full explanatory power. Anti-Mormonism began well before Joseph Smith's 1843 revelation. Even if one points to the fact that polygamy was first practiced in 1831, the first notable anti-Mormon tract was in 1830. Additionally, Mormons were not the only ones engaged in "deviant" sexual practices. The Oneida Community, also a group coming out of the Second Great Awakening, engaged in curious sexual practices. The Shakers were another group of religious outsiders who were notable for deviant sexual practices--namely, not engaging in any sexual practices. Nevertheless, none of these groups received the same amount of hatred Mormons encountered. (Givens goes on to suggest that the real reason why Mormonism was hated was due to the fact that it demystified religion, made it too earthly, and offended Protestant bibliocentricism by adding to the cannon and allowing constant revelations.)

But not everyone cared. In his challenging Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans, R. Moore notes that it was mostly the elites--specifically, Protestant ministers--who spent time denouncing Mormons. Most Mormons did not practice polygamy, and most lay persons seemed not to care at all. Moore goes on to suggest that Mormons essentially fabricated their oppression: they played up their status as persecuted and marginalized in order to make themselves seem different. To me, this is a flippant reading of Mormon history. It fails to take serious the venom spewed at Haun's Mill, or the sincerity of Pratt, who was killed in the South (for practicing polygamy. It should be noted, that while I agree with Givens' assertion that polygamy lacks full explanatory power, Givens and Moore fail to account for regional differences. Mormonism's venture South places polygamy at the foreground of the story).

But there were other peculiarities that was offense to many in the US. Navoo was a period of peculiar doctrines, and became a labertory for Joeseph Smith to mix church and state in 1844. Smith called it theodemocracy. This system was a blend of republican principles and theocratic notions. In essence, God spoke to Smith about what should be done, and Smith would bring it to the council of the fifty to be enacted. The council of fifty was a bit of a shadowy group, and US citizens already had an antipathy for secretive groups like Masons. Additionally, under this system, Smith was the head of the state, and rose a Mormon army to protect the Mormon Kingdom. To many US citizens, this seemed like a rather popish approach to politics, and it needed to be stopped. But theodemocracy was not around that long, so it is not the sole contributing factor.

In his Quest for Refuge, Hill argues that what truly animated Mormon persecution was Mormon's anti-pluralism. Part of what led to the creation of Mormonism was Smith's anxiety about what was the right church to follow.

to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong;

This was not exactly a position amenable to the growing cacophony of religious voices, espicially in the Burned Over District of 1830s New York. According to Hill, and Hill is writing during a period called the Post-Puritan Paradigm in religious history, the US was generally religiously pluralistic, and those voices that took a strict stance could not stand in this pluralistic society. Hill, however, is most certainly wrong. The US was not a pluralistic society when it came to religion. There was widespread anti-Catholicism, and Mormons were often compared to Catholics. It was a modified pluralism. All Protestant groups were largely tolerated, a point historians like David Sehat (The Myth of American Religious Freedom) and, to a lesser degree, Richard Pointer (Protestant Pluralism and the New York Experience).