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The very short answer is yes, there were strong tensions within the Latter Day Saint movement over who should success Joseph Smith Jr as the spiritual and temporal head of the Church he founded - but it isn't actually possible to focus on the LDS Church in the way you're perhaps looking with your question because the period immediately after his death was marked by an extended period of confusion over the question of how a successor should be chosen and how, and the result is that the major Latter Day Saint denominations that subsequently emerged generally speaking all considered themselves to be the legitimate continuation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was not necessarily obvious in the 1840s which 'wing' of the Church's following would emerge, over the course of the following decades, as the pre-dominant force in Mormon religion. Writing the history of Latter Day Saint schism and succession is also complicated by the fact it is a matter of faith who the legitimate successor was to Joseph Jr and the various claimants all have contemporaries who provided evidence and testimony to support the details of their claims, and critics who wanted to disavow those claims. Some of the details of the actual events that surrounded the succession are confused - and the factors involved in different claims and decisions - are contradictory. For example, newly released evidence from a meeting of one of the major pre-1844 decision-making bodies of the Church appear to challenge claims made by the three major leaders of the Church or their supporters after Joseph Jr's death.

Having learned the hard way that my answers on Mormonism are likely to attract attention even on old threads I should begin with a disclaimer: I am a practising and believing Mormon, though I do not belong and have never belonged to the main LDS Church, but rather to the second largest Latter Day Saint tradition. As such, I obviously have a personal view on who the rightful successor was to Joseph Jr as the Church's Prophet and President. But I was a historian in training or vocation for the better part of a decade before I converted to Latter Day Saintism, and a historian intimately familiar with the 19th century transatlantic world at that. I want to be clear that as a historian I do not believe - as I will discuss - that there is conclusive evidence that anyone was clearly anointed as Smith's successor, and that there were at least four major candidates who were able to make compelling claims to be the rightful leader of the movement that were in keeping with emerging Latter Day Saint traditions, values and institutional norms. The evidence points clearly to a period of contest and confusion with multiple viable claimants to the leadership of the Mormon faith. I will return to my own personal views on the succession at the end of my answer for those interested in understanding how my historical knowledge intersects with the convictions of my faith.

To understand the leadership struggle that followed Joseph Jr's death, it's important to first understand the particular role that he occupied within the hierarchy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (which for now I will just call 'the Church'), how he came to occupy that role, and the tensions that were already begin to arise around his leadership during his lifetime and especially on the eve of his death.

Although the Church was formally constituted and declared on April 6th 1830, it is not entirely clear when the Restoration - the name that Latter Day Saints themselves give to their collective movement and family of churches today, referring in traditional Mormon belief to the idea that Latter Day Saintism represents a literal and/or moral reinstatement of the beliefs and values of the earliest Christians - movement began. The traditional view among Latter Day Saints is that the movement began sometime in 1820 when Joseph Jr, then a 14 year old boy, went into the woods behind his family home to pray for clarity on who he should listen to in matters of faith. There Joseph Jr claimed he had a vision of Jesus Christ, who forgave him of his sins and told him that there was no church on Earth anymore that preached the authentic Gospel any longer. Whether or not this First Vision as Mormon tradition calls it happened is a matter of faith - but from an historical perspective, no first or second hand account of it is recorded anywhere before 1832, and the people involved in Joseph's early life were his working class family and neighbours, meaning we have precious little documentary evidence of his pre-Church life contemporary to it.

Most probably Joseph began to have serious thoughts about religion and his role in the world spiritually for the first time in 1823. In later accounts of his life, this is when Joseph Jr reported that an angel called Moroni first appeared to him to tell him of ancient golden plates buried in the Earth which he was to be given the power to translate and share with the world (which would become the Book of Mormon). Joseph's mother recalled around the right time having a discussion in the family on which churches were and were not theologically sound and spiritually legitimate, although she also seemed to be confused later in life in her accounts of the First Vision and the Moroni visitation. In any event 1823 seems like a sensible place to begin the history of the faith that satisfies all: for the orthodox Mormon it is the moment Joseph Jr is explicitly given his first mission from the divine; for the Latter Day Saint who believes the Book of Mormon to be a divinely inspired parable for the 19th century it suggests 1823 was the moment Joseph Jr first felt his calling; and for those of other faiths or none it is a sensible point for identifying when the idea to write the Book of Mormon must have began to form in Joseph Jr's head. Real or imagined, the Moroni visitation is what first sets Joseph apart from other claimants to visions from God in 19th century Christianity within a Mormon theological context. To compare with the history of the other great enduring continuing revelation tradition within mainstream Christianity, the Quakers, the First Vision was the equivalent to George Fox hearing a quiet whisper in his soul; the Moroni visitation was the Mormon version of Fox on Pendle Hill being told he would gather people from across Lancashire to do great work in God's name.

Work on the actual Book of Mormon began in September 1827, ostensibly after another visit from the angel Moroni. The only thing we know for certain about the golden plates Joseph reported to recover was that there was some kind of physical artefact other contemporaries interacted with and saw being transported. But here was the primary claim to Joseph Jr's prophetic mantle: only he was allowed to see the plates by divine commandment and only he given the ability to translate from the language they were written. Over the next few years Smith began to attract a small following of supporters and interested parties, and the vast majority of the Book of Mormon was completed in a short period of time in 1829. According to Mormon tradition the Church was established spiritually in this period first by the baptism and calling to the priesthood of Joseph Jr and his scribe and devotee, Oliver Cowdery. This was the second pillar of Smith's legitimacy in the eyes of his later followers: he was the first member and first priesthood holder in the Restoration. The Book of Mormon was published and sent to print in early 1830 and on April 6th, Smith's early followers met to form what would eventually become the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (then just 'Church of Christ'), where the third pillar of his leadership was established.

On the day of the Church's founding, Joseph Smith Jr related a message from God to his followers. This message is now held in the third book of sacred scripture that nearly all Saints recognise called Doctrine and Covenants (D&C), although the D&C itself wasn't organised a cohesive volume until 1835. In this message Smith reported that God had called him to be "a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church [...] being inspired of the Holy Ghost to lay the foundation thereof, and to build it unto the most holy faith" and that God wished for the Church to "give heed unto all [Joseph's] words and commandments, which he shall give unto you, as he receiveth them [...] ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith". Joseph was set aside as a unique channel of communication between the earthly Church and the divine. Over the course of the next 18 months, Smith's role was refined and elaborated by additional revelations that clarified only he could speak for God within the Church and his position as the primary and ultimate leader of the faith clarified. He was both President of the Church and the Prophet of the Restoration. Other institutions of leadership were established and democratic decision-making was encouraged within parts of the emerging Church apparatus, but by the end of 1831 Smith's authority and role were quite well cemented. By 1835 the modern Church leadership structure was established: Smith as the Church's Prophet and President at the top, supporting by two or more deputies (the First Presidency), and a Council of Twelve senior priests mimicking Christ's calling of twelve apostles.