On December 25, 1832, at or near Kirtland, Ohio, Joseph Smith dictated a revelation, now Doctrine and Covenants section 87, declaring that wars would "shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina," that the Southern states would divide against the Northern states and call on Great Britain and other nations for aid, that slaves would eventually "rise up against their masters" once "marshaled and disciplined for war," and that war would in time be "poured out upon all nations." Frederick G. Williams wrote the text down as Smith dictated it; the original manuscript does not survive, but Williams's own copy, made into Revelation Book 2 within weeks, does. The revelation came four days after Kirtland's own newspaper reported South Carolina's Nullification Convention declaring federal tariff law void in the state and threatening to organize a separate government if Washington tried to enforce it. It was withheld from print for almost two decades, first published in Liverpool in 1851 and added to the Doctrine and Covenants' American editions in 1876, fifteen years into the war it is remembered for naming.
Facts
Disputed
Documented ResponseSourced to the subject's own accountScott C. Esplin's own chapter, read directly, documents that Latter-day Saint leaders did not defend the revelation's more specific, unfulfilled elements so much as reframe it. Verses 3 and 4 name Great Britain being called upon and slaves marshaled in open rebellion against their masters; neither occurred as literally stated, since Great Britain maintained official neutrality through the war and no organized mass slave uprising against masters took place. Esplin traces how, once the war ended without those specific elements having come to pass, church leaders including Joseph L. Wirthlin increasingly read the section's later promise that "war shall be poured out upon all nations" as pointing past 1865 toward the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War, and Esplin states plainly, in his own words, that only "a portion of that revelation has been literally fulfilled," with teaching material since emphasizing the section's closing counsel, "stand ye in holy places," over its specific geopolitical predictions. 3 Documented ResponseThe Joseph Smith Papers Project's own historical introduction to this revelation, read directly, notes that the Painesville Telegraph, a newspaper published ten miles from Kirtland, carried a report on December 21, 1832, four days before the revelation, on South Carolina's Nullification Convention and its threat to "organize a separate Government" if federal tariff enforcement were attempted, and states in its own words that "it is probable that JS saw or heard about the articles in the 21 December Telegraph within a day or so." On this reading, the prediction that rebellion would begin in South Carolina was an informed inference from days-old news of an already unfolding sectional crisis rather than an isolated foresight; President Andrew Jackson was separately predicting around the same period that the next occasion for Southern disunion would be the slavery question. 2 Fulfillment
Claimed FulfillmentDoctrine and Covenants 87, verses 1 to 4, quoted in full: "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 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 then war shall be poured out upon all nations... it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war." 1 Documented ResponseSourced to the subject's own accountThe American Civil War began at Fort Sumter in April 1861, following South Carolina's secession in December 1860, the first state to leave the Union, and divided the Southern from the Northern states exactly as verse 3 names; a conservative estimate puts its dead at roughly 618,000, the deadliest conflict in United States history. A month after Sumter, the Philadelphia Sunday Mercury reprinted the 1851 pamphlet text of the revelation under the heading "A Mormon Prophecy" and closed its own commentary with the question "Have we not had a prophet among us?" Nineteenth century Latter-day Saint leaders cited the war's outbreak as the revelation vindicated, in their own words: Brigham Young recalled that the nation "broke in pieces in the State where the Lord... revealed to the Prophet Joseph that the nation would begin to break"; Wilford Woodruff said he had "copied a revelation more than twenty-five years ago, in which it is stated that war should be in the south and in the north"; George Q. Cannon recalled hearing it as a child and that he "looked for its fulfillment until it came to pass." 3 Dating
Predicted DateNo calendar date for the war's outbreak beyond "shortly." Verse 1 names a specific starting condition: war "beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina." A narrower form of that rebellion was already under way when the revelation was dictated: South Carolina's Nullification Convention had declared federal tariff law void in the state the previous month and threatened to organize a separate government if Washington tried to enforce it. 1 Date AttributedDecember 25, 1832, at or near Kirtland, Ohio, per the revelation's own heading. Frederick G. Williams wrote it down as Smith dictated it; the original manuscript is not extant, but Williams's own copy, made into Revelation Book 2 probably between late January and late February 1833, survives, dating the text to within weeks of the events it concerns rather than to a later, edited memory of them. 2 Origins
Attributed Author / CompilerJoseph Smith, presenting the text as a revelation received from the Lord rather than as his own words. 1 Attributions
TraditionThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' scriptural canon. The revelation is section 87 of the Doctrine and Covenants, first published in the 1851 Pearl of Great Price and added to the Doctrine and Covenants' American editions in 1876. 1 Sources
Primary SourceDoctrine and Covenants 87. The original 1832 dictation does not survive; the earliest text is Frederick G. Williams's contemporary copy in Revelation Book 2. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The conflict the tradition reads this revelation as naming in advance.
Attributed To
The revelation's own dictated author.
Belongs to Tradition
Part Of
Section 87 of the Doctrine and Covenants.
Sources
1. The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Joseph Smith and his successors, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835View the Source 2. Revelation, 25 December 1832 [Doctrine and Covenants 87], The Joseph Smith Papers
Matthew C. Godfrey, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford and William G. Hartley, eds., The Church Historian's Press, 2013View the Source 3. Have We Not Had a Prophet Among Us? Joseph Smith's Civil War Prophecy
Scott C. Esplin, Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Deseret Book (in Civil War Saints, ed. Kenneth L. Alford), 2012View the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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