On June 7, 1844, a bold and short-lived newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor published its first—and only—issue in Nauvoo, Illinois. It was created by former Mormon insiders who could no longer remain silent. They leveled charges against Joseph Smith, including abuse of power, political tyranny, and most explosively, his secret polygamy. The Nauvoo Expositor printed a single issue that exposed the wrongdoings of a supposed prophet. He destroyed the press, an event which led to his downfall.
On Friday, June 7, 1844, dissenters from the Church published the one and only issue of an opposition newspaper they called the Nauvoo Expositor. The publishers were a former First Counselor in the First Presidency, William Law; Law’s brother, Wilson; Charles Ivins; Charles and Robert Foster; and Francis and Chauncey Higbee. The dissenters, several of whom had been recently excommunicated, published the Expositor to stir up controversy over practices and teachings with which they strongly disagreed. Using inflammatory language, they voiced their discontent with the practice of plural marriage, Joseph Smith’s teachings on the nature of God from his recent King Follett sermon, and his mixing of religious and civic authority in Nauvoo.
LDS Website: Church History Topics: Nauvoo Expositor
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/nauvoo-expositor
At the time, Joseph Smith was not only the founder and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but also Nauvoo’s mayor, chief judge, and the lieutenant general of its militia. Publicly, he denied practicing polygamy—going so far as to proclaim in a sermon on May 26, 1844:
What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one.
I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers. I labored with these apostates myself until I was out of all manner of patience; and then I sent my brother Hyrum, whom they virtually kicked out of doors.
I then sent Mr. Backenstos, when they declared that they were my enemies. I told Mr. Backenstos that he might tell the Laws, if they had any cause against me I would go before the Church, and confess it to the world.
Joseph Smith, Address of the Prophet—His Testimony Against the Dissenters at Nauvoo.
History of the Church, Volume 6, Page 411
https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfTheChurchOfJesusChristOfLatter-daySaints1902-Volume6/page/n453/mode/2up
https://byustudies.byu.edu/online-book/history-of-the-church-volume-6/volume-6-chapter-19
This denial was a blatant lie. Today, even the official LDS Church admits that Joseph Smith had at least 30–40 plural wives, including teenagers as young as 14 and women already married to other men. None of these marriages were publicly acknowledged at the time. Smith and his inner circle orchestrated a massive cover-up—gaslighting their followers and silencing dissenters. Publicly, they preached against and denied their participation in plural marriage, polygamy, and spiritual wivery. But privately, top leaders, and especially Joseph Smith, were involved with secret marriages with dozens of women, most of which his wife Emma was unaware of, as were most of his other wives.
![“The exact number of women to whom [Joseph Smith] was sealed in his lifetime is unknown because the evidence is fragmentary. *Careful estimates put the number between 30 and 40.” - Gospel Topic Essay: Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo, LDS Church | wasmormon.org](https://i0.wp.com/wasmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Joseph-Smith-church-states-a-careful-estimate-that-he-had-30-40-wives.jpg?resize=640%2C640&ssl=1)
When the Expositor exposed this duplicity, Smith and the Nauvoo City Council declared the paper “a public nuisance” on June 10, 1844. Acting in his capacity as mayor, Smith ordered the destruction of the press.
On Saturday, June 8, and the following Monday, June 10, the Nauvoo City Council convened to determine a course of action… With the sanction of the city council, Joseph Smith ordered a marshal, with the assistance of the Nauvoo Legion, to destroy the printing press. On Monday evening, June 10, the marshal and his posse of approximately 100 men removed the press, scattered the type, and burned the remaining copies of the newspaper… The Nauvoo City Council had reason to believe their actions were legal… Scholars have concluded that the Nauvoo City Council acted legally to destroy copies of the newspaper but may have exceeded its authority by destroying the press itself.
LDS Website: Church History Topics: Nauvoo Expositor
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/nauvoo-expositor
This act, the church still argues today, was a “gray area,” and the council (including Joseph Smith) “had reason to believe their actions were legal.” The church article cites “scholars” who have “concluded” that the Nauvoo City Council (meaning Joseph Smith) acted legally in everything but destroying the press! But, they did destroy the press, so absolving them in legal apologetics is pointless. It’s really all just posturing and setting the church up to have done (almost) nothing wrong, while continuing to ignore the contents of the Nauvoo Expositor.
It all boils down to an alleged prophet of God using his political power to suppress the freedom of the press, violating not only laws but also fundamental American ideals of liberty and due process. No trial. No legal justification. Just brute force in the name of saving the community from public nuisance. They effectively destroyed te press because they thought the saints would do it, and incite more violence against them. After already losing in Missouri, they were not about to lose their place in Illinois too.
The destruction of the Expositor fanned the flames of controversy… Trying to prevent a civil war, Illinois governor Thomas Ford reviewed the Nauvoo City Council’s legal justifications for suppressing the newspaper and decided that Joseph Smith needed to stand trial… Though he accepted Ford’s promise of protection and submitted to arrest, Joseph Smith never stood trial to defend his actions as mayor. A mob stormed Carthage Jail and murdered him and his brother Hyrum.
LDS Website: Church History Topics: Nauvoo Expositor
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/nauvoo-expositor
The destruction of the Expositor press was a tipping point. It shocked surrounding communities and intensified existing fears about Mormon theocracy, corruption, and militancy. Smith was charged with inciting a riot and later with treason for ordering the press destroyed and calling out the Nauvoo Legion. He eventually surrendered to state authorities and was held in Carthage Jail.
On June 27, 1844, just 17 days after the press was destroyed, an armed mob stormed the jail and killed Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. Though the LDS Church frames this as martyrdom, it was a consequence of Smith’s actions—a prophet exposed, a press silenced, and justice evaded until it boiled over.
Ironically, destroying the press ended up being the last straw for the people of Illinois and the saints ended up without a leader or a home. After, as the narrative today recalls, the power settled upon Brigham, he led the saints further West, beyond the bounds of the United States, where their only neighbors would be infrequent settlers and natives. Both of which faced the continued Mormon violence.
The Nauvoo Expositor is a chilling reminder of what happens when religious leaders gain unchecked power and treat legitimate criticism as treason. The LDS Church still portrays the destruction of the press as a defensive act, but history tells a darker truth: it was about concealing secret doctrines, crushing dissent, and protecting a fragile illusion of prophetic innocence. The supposed anti-Mormon lies contained in the Nauvoo Expositor are today admitted in Church History Essays about Joseph Smith and his polygamy.
Dallin H. Oaks even admits that nothing in the Expositor was untrue, even if it used colorful language to defame the church leadership.
A. An Evaluation of the Expositor Charges
The legality of the council’s action in suppressing the Expositor depends upon the nature of the charges in the Expositor… While a weighing of conflicting evidence on the truth or falsity of these charges is beyond the scope of this article, some of the charges involve facts that are essentially undisputed…
1. Politics. The Expositor’s general complaints about the union of the authority of church and state in Nauvoo were essentially true. …
2. Religion. The same can be said of the Expositor’s charges that Joseph Smith was teaching false religious doctrines, notably polygamy. …
3. Morality. Probably the most provocative portions of the Expositor were the claims that Hyrum Smith was a “base seducer, liar and perjurer” and the charges that Joseph Smith had spread “death, devastation and ruin,” that he had committed fraud in handling Church monies, and that he was guilty of practicing whoredoms and had engaged in numerous seductions of the type vividly described, which were said to have caused the untimely death of the women involved. Volumes have been written about the truth or falsity of these and similar charges relating to the character of the Mormon leaders. For present purposes it is unnecessary — even if it were possible — to resolve the conflicts between their detractors and defenders. Whether the charges were true or false, they were malicious, scandalous, and defamatory.
Dallin H. Oaks, “The Suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor,” Utah Law Review, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Winter 1965), 862–903.
https://archive.org/details/UtahLawReview9/page/n43/mode/2up
Here, Oaks, in 1965, categorized the Expositor’s content into three categories: politics, religion, and morality. He concedes that the political complaints were “essentially true”, and the same about the complaints about religion, or that “Joseph Smith was teaching false religious doctrines, notably polygamy.” So Joseph was secretly teaching polygamy, and the church does not contest this. But regarding the morality of Joseph (and Hyrum), Oaks does not want to debate, leaving it up to the other unnamed volumes written about them, and besides, his purpose is not to debate the content of the Expositor anyway… He states that “whether the charges were true or false, they were malicious, scandalous, and defamatory.” So, questioning the moral deeds and character of the top church leaders is beyond the capacity of any followers. This screams of Oaks’ later statements, which absolve church leaders of any accountability today, when he states that criticizing church leaders is wrong, even if the criticism is true.
Oaks is essentially turning the Nauvoo Expositor into a critique of church leaders. He argues that whether it is true or false is irrelevant because it’s malicious, scandalous, and defamatory. Seems if they are true, the guilty party deserves to be defamed, no?
But he admits the Expositor publicly exposed Joseph’s secret polygamy, and that those allegations were true. He then dismisses the fact that this, by definition, also suggests that Joseph is a liar, and thus, a moral fraud is unacceptable and “scandalous.” How is the secret polygamy uncontested, but the natural consequence of this secret polygamy and Joseph Smith’s repeated public denials, which by definition question his morality, simply dismissed as irrelevant by a lawyer, future Utah Supreme Court Judge, and LDS Church Apostle?
The publishers of the Expositor were believing members of the church (who had been excommunicated for speaking out against the secret polygamy), who thought of Joseph as the prophet of the restoration who had fallen. They were calling him to repentance, and for his accountability for the lies and secret adulterous polygamous practice. His response was to destroy it, even though he, if he had any prophetic power, should have seen what it would lead to in a few short weeks. We can’t question a church leader, even if our criticism is true, because, according to Oaks, it makes them look bad. Not to mention the fact that they do stupid things and say stupid things and lie to us, makes them look worse.
The Light Still Shines
181 years ago today, a small printing press tried to tell the truth. It was destroyed, physically and symbolically, by the very man it exposed. The aftermath shook Mormonism to its core and still raises questions that faithful narratives prefer to leave unasked.
The truth was inconvenient. So they smashed the press.
The Nauvoo Expositor told the truth—and it cost them everything. But that single act of courage helped bring a tyrant down. Truth is still the disinfectant that cleanses corruption. Just as it did in 1844, today, voices, largely of former members, continue to shine a light on abuse, deception, and manipulation still present in Mormonism.
If you’ve left the church, don’t be silent. Your story matters. Be loud. Be specific. Share why you left. Speak your truth and let your experience shine into the shadows that persist. Whether you faced doctrinal deception, personal betrayal, or institutional harm, telling your story is a form of resistance and healing.
Add your story to wasmormon.org. Be part of the modern Expositor. Help keep the light burning. The darkness of high-demand religion thrives in silence. The truth is our printing press now—and they can’t smash us all.
More reading:
- https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfTheChurchOfJesusChristOfLatter-daySaints1902-Volume6/page/n453/mode/2up
- https://byustudies.byu.edu/online-book/history-of-the-church-volume-6/volume-6-chapter-19
- The Nauvoo Expositor And More Lies From Joseph Smith
- The Drawn Flaming Sword of Polygamy – Spiritual Abuse and Manipulation
- A Fig For Polygamy?
- Playing Church History Whack-a-Mole
- Church Teaches Children Eternal Polygamy
- Irony of Mormon Church Complaining of Bigoted Marriage Laws
- Joseph Smith was a Glass Looking Treasure Digger
- https://mrm.org/joseph-smith-dissenters
- https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/65349m/what_a_thing_it_is_for_a_man_to_be_accused_of/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/4mzbv6/on_this_day_172_years_ago_in_mormon_history/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/e9e485/ever_wanted_to_know_what_the_nauvoo_expositor/