William Marks (Latter Day Saints) - Issues With Apostolic Succession

Issues With Apostolic Succession

See also: Succession crisis (Latter Day Saints)

At the time of the murder of Joseph Smith, much of the leadership of the church was campaigning for Smith’s candidacy for President of the United States. Marks, as landlord of the Nauvoo Mansion, oversaw some of the funerary preparations for the burial of Joseph and his brother Hyrum.

According to William Clayton's diary, Emma Smith supported Marks as the successor to her husband, the now deceased Joseph Smith, Jr.. According to Emma, Marks had a right to church succession as the High Council President, which she asserted was equal in authority to the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency. Furthermore, she felt that while apostles had authority in unorganized parts of the church, they did not have authority in the stake of Zion, Nauvoo. This reasoning was one of many interpretations put forward by various factions in the months after Smith's death. (Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, 1994, pp. 160)

Historian D. Michael Quinn claims that despite the foregoing, church succession in Nauvoo revolved around one central issue: plural marriage. Quinn maintains that Marks' known opposition to plural marriage was a crucial issue, and that although a small group of church leaders almost approved Marks as the next church president by July 10, 1844, Elder Willard Richards—one the Church's Twelve Apostles—delayed all action until Quorum President Brigham Young returned from the presidential campaign. Young and the majority of the Quorum of the Twelve, Quinn asserts, feared that Marks would end plural marriage and other ordinances that they saw as crucial to exaltation in the afterlife (Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy, 1994, pp. 151-160).

Quinn states that despite Emma's support, and despite receiving his endowments and anointings before any other successor claimants (including every member of the Quorum of Twelve), Marks did not advance his own claims to church leadership (Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, 1994, pp. 184). Instead, Marks sympathized with Sidney Rigdon and supported his bid to become "guardian" of the church. Because of this and because he did not support the Twelve Apostles, Marks was removed from the High Council at the October General Conference in 1844, and also rejected as president of the Nauvoo Stake of Zion. Patriarch John Smith, an uncle of Joseph's, was chosen as Marks's successor. Despite Brigham Young's desire to see Marks excommunicated, the Nauvoo High Council refused his request. Marks remained unexcommunicated for the remainder of his life. After several opponents of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles were terrorized by Nauvoo policemen (Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, p. 176-177), William Marks left Nauvoo in February 1845. Brigham Young observed that "Bro. Marks had gone without being whittled out"—a reference to a tactic of surrounding an opponent with adult men who whistled and whittled without saying a word to the opponent (Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, pp. 176-177). Young and Marks would never be reconciled after this.