Brigham Young—Sidney Rigdon

The succession contest between Brigham Young and Sidney Rigdon turned Joseph Smith’s death into a test of how authority in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could be inherited. Rigdon, an anti-polygamist who sought to preserve his own claim to leadership, became guardian of the church while Brigham Young and the other apostles were away. Their rivalry came to a head in Nauvoo in August 1844, where the assembled Saints had to decide not only who would lead, but what kind of religious authority would follow Joseph.

Competing claims after Joseph Smith’s death

Ten members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, including Brigham Young, were traveling across the country to build support for Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign when Joseph was killed. Brigham, then in Massachusetts, learned of the death nineteen days later. The apostles hurried back to Nauvoo, but their absence opened space for the anti-polygamy faction to advance an alternative succession.

That faction first considered Joseph Smith III, who was still a child, and then turned toward Samuel H. Smith, Joseph’s younger brother. Samuel died suddenly on July 30. The account describes circumstantial evidence suggesting that Hosea Stout, chief of the Nauvoo police and a supporter of Brigham and the polygamists, poisoned him; it does not establish this as a proven fact. With Samuel gone and the apostles still away, Rigdon made a last effort to secure Joseph’s place in the church.

Rigdon gathered support among the anti-polygamists and obtained an appointment as guardian. It was provisional: a churchwide vote at a special meeting on August 8 was still required to confirm it. His apparent advantage depended on completing that process before Brigham and the apostles returned. They arrived on the night of August 6, interrupting the plan and bringing the contest to a public decision.

The Nauvoo meeting

On the morning of August 8, 1844, the faithful of Nauvoo assembled to hear both men make their case. Rigdon spoke for ninety minutes, arguing passionately for his leadership, but did not persuade the congregation that he was God’s unmistakable choice. The meeting then turned to Brigham, whose claim rested on the standing of the apostles and on the support he could win from the gathered Saints.

John D. Lee later recalled Brigham speaking with a striking resemblance to Joseph. Lee and other witnesses said that Brigham seemed, as he addressed them, to take on Joseph’s voice and appearance; some also described a change in his stature. These were reports of a remarkable religious experience, not an uncontested demonstration. In the account, however, their effect is clear: many present came to believe that Joseph’s mantle had passed to Brigham. He won the meeting’s support and became the church’s second president, prophet, seer, and revelator.

The contrast between the two claims was also doctrinal. Rigdon belonged to the anti-polygamy camp, while Brigham would defend plural marriage as a sacred religious practice and insist that divine law took precedence over human law. The choice therefore settled more than which man would occupy the leadership position. It favored a succession that retained the religious commitments contested by Rigdon’s faction.

Revelation, office, and authority

The contest took place within a religion whose founding authority was bound to continuing revelation. The church’s supreme leader bore the title President, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, expressing the expectation that ecclesiastical direction came through divine communication. Joseph Smith had initially encouraged members to seek personal revelations, but the possibility that different Saints might receive contradictory instructions threatened a prophet’s control over the institution. In 1830, the year the church was incorporated, Joseph announced that no one else was to receive commandments and revelations for the church.

The restriction did not extinguish personal revelation. The appeal of direct communication with God endured, and members continued to heed what they understood as divine guidance, including on doctrinal matters. The resulting tension helps explain why succession could not be resolved by office alone: candidates and followers also had to recognize a claim as spiritually legitimate. At the Nauvoo meeting, Brigham’s perceived resemblance to Joseph gave the transfer a charismatic force that a provisional appointment by Rigdon had not secured.

Consequences and a recurring pattern

The account treats the timing of Brigham’s return as consequential for the church’s future. Had he arrived thirty-six hours later, it suggests, Rigdon might have gained control; the Latter-day Saints might not have settled the Great Basin, and church plural marriage might not have taken root in the same way. These are counterfactual possibilities, not events that occurred. What did occur was Brigham’s victory and the continuation of a leadership tradition that joined prophetic authority to the authority of the apostles.

The dispute also belongs to a longer history of contested succession and schism. In later generations, arguments over who had inherited a prophet’s authority again divided Mormon fundamentalist communities: after Joseph Musser named Rulon Allred his heir, supporters of LeRoy Johnson disputed the choice, and the movement split into rival groups. The Brigham–Rigdon contest thus marks an early and consequential instance of a persistent problem: revelation could legitimate a leader, but competing believers could also invoke religious conviction against the institution’s chosen successor.