Joseph Quincy Meets the Prophet Joseph

Josiah Quincy visited Nauvoo in 1844, just six weeks before the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Quincy had been the mayor of Boston and was a recognized politician and author. He spent several days with Joseph Smith, and recorded a number of experiences and impressions of that time. One incident provides some unique insights about the Prophet:

"I should not say quite all that struck me about Smith if I did not mention that he seemed to have a keen sense of the humorous aspects of his position.

"'It seems to me, General,' I said, as he was driving us to the river, about sunset, 'that you have too much power to be safely trusted to one man.'

"'In your hands or that of any other person,' was the reply, 'so much power would, no doubt, be dangerous. I am the only man in the world whom it would be safe to trust with it. Remember, I am a prophet!'

"The last five words were spoken in a rich, comical aside, as if in hearty recognition of the ridiculous sound they might have in the ears of a Gentile. I asked him to test his powers by naming the successful candidate in the approaching presidential election.
'Well, I will prophesy that John Tyler will not be the next president, for some things are possible and some things are probable; but Tyler's election is neither the one nor the other.'"

That prediction about the election of 1844 was accurate; Tyler, who had succeeded to the U.S. presidency on the death of William Henry Harrison in 1841, was nominated as a candidate during the conventions of 1844, but later withdrew from his party's nomination in favor of the more popular James K. Polk.

Josiah Quincy is also credited with this well-known tribute to Joseph Smith:

"It is by no means improbable that some future textbook, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet."



(Josiah Quincy, _Figures of the Past_, pp. 376, 396-397)