THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY—CONCLUDED.  
On the 25th of December, 1832, the following revelation and prophecy in relation to the great American civil war, and war among all nations, was given through Joseph Smith:
 
"Verily, thus saith the Lord, concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls.
 
"The days will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at that place.
 
"For behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and thus war shall be poured out upon all nations.
 
"And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshalled and disciplined for war: and it shall come to pass also, that the remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves and shall become exceeding angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation;
 
"And thus, with the sword, and by bloodshed, the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine and plague and earthquakes and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations;
 
"That the cry of the Saints, and of the blood of the Saints, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies.
 
"Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen."
 
As stated this revelation and prophecy was given in December, 1832; the elders carried manuscript copies of it with them in their missionary journeys, and frequently read it to their congregations in various parts of the United States. In Vol. XIII of the Millennial Star, published in 1851, pp. 216 and 217, is an advertisement of a new church publication to be called the Pearl of Great Price. In the announced contents is named this revelation of December, 1832, with a statement, that it had "never before appeared in print." Subsequently, but in the same year, the Pearl of Great Price with this prophecy in it, was published by Franklin D. Richards, in Liverpool, England. There are copies of the first edition still extant.[1]
 
I am careful to make these statements that the reader may have ample assurance that the revelation and prophecy preceded the event of the great Civil War. The revelation containing the prophecy was given on the 25th of December, 1832. The first shot fired in the great American Civil War was fired early on the morning of April 12th, 1861. Hence the prediction preceded the commencement of its fulfillment by twenty-eight years, three months and seventeen days. Ten years before the war began, the prophecy was published in England and circulated both in that country and in the United States. There can be no question, therefore, as to the prophecy preceding the event.
 
Let us inquire if the events predicted were of a nature that they could not be foreseen and hence foretold by human judgment, unaided by divine inspiration. The prophecy predicts,
 
First, that the war would begin with the rebellion of South Carolina.
 
Second, that it would terminate in the death and misery of many souls.
 
Third, that the Southern States would be divided against the Northern States.
 
Fourth, that the Southern States would call upon other nations for assistance, even upon the nation of Great Britain.
 
Fifth, that Great Britain would call upon other nations for assistance, and thus war would eventually be poured out upon all nations.
 
I submit that this is an enumeration of events twenty-eight years in the future altogether too definite for human wisdom, unassisted by divine inspiration, to give. Profane history has nothing like it. To find a parallel to it, recourse must be had to the history of the Jewish prophets. It is true there was considerable agitation about the time of the prophecy on the question known in American politics as "States' rights." In 1830 had occurred the great Senate debate on that subject between Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, and Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts. On that occasion the champion from South Carolina advocated the doctrine known as "nullification." The discussion had its origin in an effort to repeal the protective tariff laws of 1828, which South Carolina, with several other States, regarded as unconstitutional because the laws were based upon the principle of federal protection to local interests in the several States, to the injury of the general interests of the country. But South Carolina also held, which the other states did not, "that it was within the reserved rights of the states to have the question of constitutionality on this subject rightfully determined by the judiciary of the states severally, each for itself, instead of exclusively by the federal judiciary."[2]
 
The question again approached the acute stage in 1832, when the sovereign convention of the people of South Carolina was called which adopted what was known as the "Nullification Ordinance." The leading features of this were (1) a declaration that the tariff act of 1832, being based upon the principle of protection to manufacturers, and not with the view to raising revenue, was unconstitutional and therefore null and void; (2) a provision for testing the constitutionality of this act before the courts of the state; (3) that in case the measures thus adopted for the purpose stated should be forcibly resisted by the federal authorities, then the State of South Carolina was declared to be no longer a member of the Federal union. The last measure was to take effect on the 12th of February, 1833, if before that time the principle of levying duties upon imports, not with a view to revenue, but for the protection of domestic manufactures, should not be abandoned by the congress of the states.[3]
 
But notwithstanding these hostile demonstrations on the part of South Carolina, there was really no very great danger to the union at that time. Andrew Jackson, a man of great determination of character, and patriotically devoted to the union, was president; and his political principles ran parallel with his devotion. He issued a proclamation in which he urged South Carolina not to persist in the enforcement of her ordinance as it would necessarily bring the federal and state authorities in conflict, and if the citizens of South Carolina took up arms against the United States they would be guilty of treason. "The ordinance," said he, "is founded not on the indefeasible right of resisting acts which are plainly unconstitutional, and too oppressive to be endured; but on the strange position that any one state may not only declare an act of congress void but prohibit its execution, and that they may do this consistently with the constitution; that the true construction of that instrument permits a state to retain its place in the union, and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to consider constitutional."[4]
 
It was in December, 1832, the same month in which the revelation and prophecy under consideration was given, that this issue between South Carolina and the Federal government about reached its climax. It is important to observe that these questions of nullification and a state's right to secede from the union were sharply agitated in December, 1832, because it gives direct testimony of the original date of the prophecy. That is, it is clear from the facts of history that the question in 1832 was before the nation; and very naturally the prophet inquired of the Lord concerning it, with the result that he receive the revelation now under consideration.
 
That the prophet did make inquiry of the Lord concerning this subject is evident from a direct statement of his to that effect. Preaching at Ramus, Illinois, on the 2nd of April, 1843, the prophet in the course of his remarks said: "I prophesy, in the name of the Lord God, that the commencement of the difficulties which will cause much bloodshed previous to the coming of the Son of Man will be in South Carolina. It may probably arise through the slave question. This a voice declared to me, while I was praying earnestly on the subject, December 25th, 1832."[5]
 
No American statesman in 1832 believed that the doctrines of secession then talked of would result in a great civil war. None of them had the foresight to see that a great rebellion would occur, beginning in South Carolina; that it would terminate in the death and misery of many souls; that the Southern States would be divided against the Northern States; that the Southern States would call on Great Britain, and that war would eventually be poured out upon all nations. No one, I say, foresaw that this would be the result save only that inspired youth—then but twenty-seven years of age—Joseph Smith, and he saw it only by the spirit of prophecy and revelation. To be required to believe that the prophecy was merely the fortunate conjecture of a more than ordinarily astute mind, requires a greater amount of credulity than to concede the inspiration of the prophet; and then the question would still remain, why is it that sagacious minds in other generations have not paralleled this astuteness of Joseph Smith's? Why did not some of the brilliant minds in the Senate or House of Representatives in 1832 make such a prediction? There was no dearth of brilliant minds in either Senate or House at that time, yet none seemed equal to the task.
 
But was the prophecy fulfilled? Did the great Civil War begin with the rebellion of South Carolina? Let history answer.
 
I. South Carolina took the initiative in the great rebellion. Deeming her interests threatened, and the institution of slavery doomed if Abraham Lincoln was elected; on November 5th, 1860, her legislature met to choose presidential electors, and Governor William H. Gist in his message to that legislature recommended that in the event of Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, a convention of the people of the state be immediately called to consider and determine for themselves the mode and measure of redress. He expressed the opinion that the only alternative left in the event of Lincoln's election was "the secession of South Carolina from the Federal union."[6]
 
On the 10th of November, 1860, the United States Senators from South Carolina, James N. Hammond and James Chestnut, Jr., resigned their seats, being the first of the senators to take that step.[7]
 
On the 17th of November, 1860, an ordinance of secession was unanimously adopted by the Legislature of South Carolina, the first act of the kind by any of the states.[8]
 
On the 24th of November, 1860, South Carolina's Representatives in Congress withdrew; they were the first representatives to do so.[9]
 
Members to a state convention for the purpose of considering the method and measure of redress in the event to Abraham Lincoln's election, were elected on the 3rd of December, 1860; the convention was assembled in Charleston.[10]
 
On the 20th of December, 1860, the convention passed the ordinance of secession and Governor Pickins—just elected—announced on the same date the repeal, by the good people of South Carolina, the ordinance of May 23rd, 1788, by which South Carolina had ratified the Federal Constitution, and declared "the dissolution of the union between the state of South Carolina and the other states under the name of the United States." The governor's proclamation also announced to the world "that the state of South Carolina is, as she has a right to be, a separate, sovereign, free and independent state and, as such, has a right to levy war, conclude peace, negotiate treaties, leagues, or covenants, and to do all acts whatsoever that rightly pertain to a free and independent state. Done in the eighty-fifth year of the sovereignty and independence of South Carolina."[11]
 
Following is the complete Ordinance passed by the Convention, as it appeared in the Charleston Mercury Extra for that date, the original of which the following is a copy is in the Libby Prison Museum, of Chicago:
 
PASSED UNANIMOUSLY AT 1:15 P. M., DECEMBER 20TH, 1860.
 
"An ordinance to dissolve the union between the States of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled 'The Constitution of the United States of America.'
 
"We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, 'That the ordinance adopted by us on the 23rd of May, A. D. 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution are hereby repealed, and the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'The United States of America' is hereby dissolved."
 
The act of rebellion on the part of South Carolina was completed. She was the first state to take the several steps here enumerated leading up to that culmination. She was followed in the act of rebellion by ten other Southern States, as follows—I take the date on which the state conventions passed their secession ordinances to be the date on which the rebellion of the respective states was completed:
 
Mississippi, January 9th, 1861; Florida, January 10th; Alabama, January 11th; Georgia, January 19th; Louisiana, January 26th; Texas, February 1st; Virginia, April 17th; Arkansas, May 6th; North Carolina, May 20th; Tennessee, June 8th, all of the same year, 1861.[12]
 
Having proven that the Great Rebellion began with the rebellion of South Carolina, I wish now to show that the war itself actually began there.
 
The states which seceded from the union in the last months of Mr. Buchanan's administration, quietly took possession of all the forts within their respective limits, except Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, and Fort Pickens, at Pensacola, Florida; and transferred them to the Confederate States. After the Southern States united into a confederacy, that government "appointed a commission consisting of Mr. John Forsyth, of Alabama, Mr. Martin J. Crawford, of Georgia, and Mr. A. B. Roman, of Louisiana, to open negotiations for the settlement of all matters of joint property, forts, arsenals, arms, or property of any other kind within the limits of the Confederate States, and all joint liabilities with their former associates, upon the principles of right, justice, equity and good faith."[13] Separate states previous to this action of the confederate states had sent commissioners to accomplish the same purpose; but of course these gave place to the commission from the general government of the confederacy.
 
During an attempt of this commission to obtain official recognition from the administration at Washington, active preparations for war were going on at the New York navy yard. Early in April a squadron of seven ships, carrying two thousand four hundred men, and two hundred and eighty-five guns put to sea from New York and Norfolk navy yards, under sealed orders. The design of the enterprise was to re-provision and re-enforce Fort Sumpter, which at the time was held by Major Anderson, with a small garrison of men very ill provisioned for a siege.
 
On the 8th of April Washington authorities, ignoring the commission in Washington from the Confederate States, sent word to Governor Pickens of South Carolina of a change in the attitude of the general government in regard to unofficial assurances given respecting the withdrawal of Federal forces from Fort Sumter, and declaring the intention of the government to re-provision and re-enforce the garrison there, "peaceably if permitted; otherwise, by force."[14]
 
At the time General Gustave T. Beauregard was at Charleston, with six thousand Confederate volunteer troops, for the purpose of defending the city. Gover............