View source for Question: After the end of the rebellion in South Carolina, did the Church not mention the Civil War prophecy for many years?

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==Question: After the end of the rebellion in South Carolina, did the Church not mention the Civil War prophecy for many years?==
===Joseph Smith reiterated the prophecy in 1842, and added more detail, 19 years before the Civil War===

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12 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.

13 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. ({{s||D&C|130|12-13}})
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===Orson Pratt preached about the prophesy in 1832, 29 years before the Civil War===

Orson Pratt testified that he began preaching the prophecy soon after it was given.  In 1870, he said:

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I went forth before my beard was gray, before my hair began to turn white, '''when I was a youth of nineteen''', now I am fifty-eight, and from that time on I published these tidings among the inhabitants of the earth. '''I carried forth the written revelation, foretelling this great contest, some twenty-eight years before the war commenced. This prophecy has been printed and circulated extensively in this and other nations and languages.''' It pointed out the place where it should commence in South Carolina. That which I declared over the New England States, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and many other parts in the East, when but a boy, came to pass twenty-eight years after the revelation was given.

When they were talking about a war commencing down here in Kansas, I told them that was not the place; I also told them that the revelation had designated South Carolina, "and," said I, "you have no need to think that the Kansas war is going to be the war that is to be so terribly destructive in its character and nature. No, it must commence at the place the Lord has designated by revelation."

What did they have to say to me? They thought it was a Mormon humbug, and laughed me to scorn, and they looked upon that revelation as they do upon all others that God has given in these latter days—as without divine authority. But behold and lo! in process of time it came to pass, again establishing the divinity of this work, and giving another proof that God is in this work, and is performing that which He spoke by the mouths of the ancient prophets, as recorded in the Book of Mormon before any Church of Latter-day Saints was in existence.<ref>{{JDfairwiki|author=Orson Pratt|article=The Latter-day Kingdom of God, etc|vol=13|disc=16|start=135|date= 10 April 1870}}</ref>
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Thus, Orson Pratt indicates that not only did he preach regarding Joseph's prophesy in 1832, but that he was ridiculed for it.  He would also remember:

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Now I am aware that it is almost impossible for even some of the Latter-day Saints to get that confidence and that strong faith in the events which God intends to accomplish on this land in the future to believe in such a thing, to say nothing about outsiders, that do not believe a word of it. Outsiders do not believe it any more than they believed me when I was a boy and took that revelation which was given in 1832, and carried it forth among many towns and cities and told them there was to be a great and terrible war between the North and the South, and read to them the revelation. Did they believe it? Would they consider that there was any truth in it? Not in the least, "that is a Mormon humbug" they would say. "What! this great and powerful nation of ours to be divided one part against the other and many hundreds of thousands of souls to be destroyed by civil wars!" Not a word of it would they believe. They do not believe what is still in the future.<ref>{{JDfairwiki|author=Orson Pratt|date= 27 December 1868|vol=12|disc=64|start=344}}</ref>
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===The Church printed the prophecy in the ''Pearl of Great Price'' in 1851, ten years before the Civil War===

The Church also printed the prophecy in the ''Pearl of Great Price'' in 1851, and continued to publicize it until the Civil War.  Clearly, they did not keep it "under wraps" until the Civil War became inevitable.<ref>{{EoM1|author=Paul H. Peterson|article=[http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Civil_War_Prophecy Civil War Prophecy]|vol=1|start=288}}</ref>

===Orson Pratt also included the full prophecy from December 1832 on the front page of his publication ''The Seer'' in April 1854, seven years before the Civil War===

Orson Pratt also included the full prophecy from December 1832 on the front page of his publication ''The Seer'' in April 1854, with interpretation and editorial comment for 6 pages.<ref>Editor [Orson Pratt], "A Revelation and Prophecy by the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, Joseph Smith," ''The Seer'' 2/4 (April 1854): 241&ndash;247.</ref>  There are also many extant manuscript copies of the prophecy, in the handwriting of men who left the church before Joseph Smith died, and some who didn't (WW Phelps, Thomas Bullock, Willard Richards [who died before the Civil War], Edward Partridge, Algernon Sidney Gilbert, Frederick G. Williams).<ref>Robert Woodford, The Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants, Ph.D. Dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1974, 1104&ndash;1124.</ref>

===The ''Philadelphia Sunday Mercury'' quoted the prophecy in 1851, ten years before the Civil War===

Robert Woodford's Ph.D. thesis also located a an article in a Philadelphia paper quoting the revelation from 1851, with comments, from May 1861; it was reprinted in England a month later:

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Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, Sunday May 5, 1861

A MORMON PROPHECY               

We have in our possession a pamphlet, published at Liverpool, in 1851, containing a selection from the ‘revelations, translations and narratives’ of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.  The following prophecy is here said to have been made by Smith, on the 25th of December, 1832.  In view of our present troubles, this prediction seems to be in progress of fulfilment, whether Joe Smith was a humbug or not:

‘A REVELATION AND PROPHECY BY THE PROPHET, SEER, AND REVELATOR, JOSEPH SMITH.  Verily thus saith the Lord…. Amen [complete text quoted]’

The war began in South Carolina.  Insurrections of slaves are already dreaded.  Famine will certainly afflict some Southern communities.  The interference of Great Britain, on account of the want of cotton, is not improbable, if the war is protracted.  In the meantime, a general war in Europe appears to be imminent.  Have we not had a prophet among us?<ref>Woodford, "The Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants," 1110, 1111 (figures 12 and 13) [figures contain photocopy of the masthead of each newspaper, and the article itself].</ref>
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Clearly, members of the Church did not hide the prophecy, and spread it far and wide among themselves and among others from the 1830s until its fulfillment in the 1860s.
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{{endnotes sources}}
[[Category:American Massacre]]
[[Category:Mormonism 101]]
[[Category:No Man Knows My History]]
[[Category:One Nation Under Gods]]
[[Category:The Kingdom of the Cults]]
[[fi:Kysymys: South Carolinan kapinan jälkeen: eikö kirkko maininnut sisällissodan profetiaa moneen vuoteen?]]
[[es:Pregunta: Después del final de la rebelión en Carolina del Sur, ¿la Iglesia no mencionó la profecía de la Guerra Civil de los Estados Unidos durante muchos años?]]
[[Category:Questions]]