Joseph Smith criticized the fragmentation of Christianity and claimed that divine authority had been restored through a living prophet.
Then Joseph died unexpectedly in June 1844.
What followed was not a universally obvious transfer of office.
It was a succession crisis.
Multiple people and institutional bodies advanced competing claims, and several enduring Latter Day Saint movements emerged from the dispute.
That history creates an important question:
If restored priesthood authority was supposed to solve the problem of competing Christian claims, why was Joseph Smith’s own succession so contested?
Joseph did not leave a modern succession constitution
Today the succession of presidents in the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is highly structured.
That later stability can make 1844 look inevitable.
It was not.
Joseph occupied overlapping roles: president, prophet, seer, revelator, trustee, mayor, leader of priesthood quorums, organizer of temple ordinances, and chairman of secretive councils.
Different offices created different possible succession theories.
When Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed together, several potential lines of authority suddenly mattered.
Sidney Rigdon’s claim
Sidney Rigdon had long served in the First Presidency.
After Joseph’s death, he returned to Nauvoo and argued that he should serve as a guardian for the Church.
Rigdon did not simply declare himself a new Joseph Smith in every respect. His claim drew on his existing position and his understanding of earlier revelations.
Brigham Young and the Twelve rejected his proposal.
At the August 8, 1844 meetings in Nauvoo, most assembled Saints accepted the leadership claim of the Twelve.
Rigdon was later excommunicated and led followers separately.
The key historical point is that an experienced counselor in the First Presidency could present a succession claim serious enough to require public adjudication.
Brigham Young and the Twelve
Brigham Young argued that Joseph had conferred the necessary priesthood keys on the Quorum of the Twelve.
This became the foundation of the largest successor movement and eventually of the modern Utah-based LDS Church.
Joseph Smith Papers materials confirm that most Nauvoo Saints accepted Young and the Twelve at the August conference.
That majority support matters.
A critic should not pretend Brigham simply seized leadership with no institutional basis.
The Twelve had gained significant authority under Joseph, especially in the final years.
But majority acceptance is not the same as an uncontested succession rule.
Other sincere Latter-day Saints interpreted Joseph’s arrangements differently.
James Strang
James J. Strang claimed that Joseph had appointed him through a letter dated shortly before Joseph’s death.
Joseph Smith Papers records the fact of Strang’s claim and the alleged appointment letter.
The Twelve denounced the letter as a forgery and excommunicated Strang.
Strang nevertheless attracted notable converts, including some prominent early Mormons, and established a separate movement.
For an apologetic article, the safest claim is not that the letter is unquestionably authentic or unquestionably forged merely because one faction said so.
The important point is that Strang’s claim was plausible enough within the charismatic world of early Mormonism to attract serious followers.
What about the Smith family?
Family succession also remained a live possibility.
Joseph’s surviving son Joseph Smith III was only eleven when his father died.
Later traditions remembered blessings that were interpreted as pointing toward a future leadership role for him.
Joseph III did not immediately claim the presidency. In 1860 he accepted leadership of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now Community of Christ.
Emma Smith eventually affiliated with that movement and did not follow Brigham Young west.
This matters because the dispute was not simply “one rebellious man versus the obvious Twelve.”
Different understandings of authority—quorum, counselor, prophetic appointment, and lineage—continued to produce rival bodies.
The famous “transfiguration of Brigham Young”
Later Utah LDS tradition includes testimonies that Brigham Young appeared or sounded like Joseph Smith during the August 8 meeting.
Many believers regard this as providential confirmation.
Historians debate the development and timing of those recollections.
A careful article should not mock spiritual memory, nor should it treat retrospective testimony as a stenographic contemporary record.
Even if one accepts the experience as miraculous, it would function as a faith-confirming sign for those who witnessed or later remembered it. It does not erase the institutional ambiguity visible in the wider succession crisis.
Schism does not automatically prove falsehood
Christianity itself experienced disputes over bishops, patriarchs, councils, rival claimants, and schisms.
Therefore Christians should not use a simplistic rule:
“A religion divided, therefore it is false.”
That argument would rebound on Christian history.
The Mormon issue is more specific.
Joseph Smith’s restoration claim used Christian division and lost authority as evidence that a new restoration was necessary.
If fragmentation is itself evidence that God’s authorized Church disappeared, then early Mormon fragmentation creates an internal problem for the same criterion.
If, however, a true church can remain true while experiencing rival claims and schism, then LDS polemics against historic Christianity must be stated more carefully.
A restored authority should clarify succession
The theological force of the succession crisis comes from Mormonism’s own promises.
A restored Church led by modern prophets and priesthood keys might be expected to possess an unusually clear answer to the question:
Who holds final authority when the founding prophet dies?
Instead, 1844 required competing interpretations of offices, blessings, keys, lineage, councils, and alleged revelations.
The Utah church eventually developed a stable succession pattern.
But stability after the crisis is not the same thing as clarity before it.
Final Verdict
The succession crisis does not prove that every Latter-day Saint body was false merely because division occurred. It does show that Joseph Smith’s death exposed substantial ambiguity at the center of supposedly restored authority.
Brigham Young and the Twelve possessed a serious institutional claim and won most Nauvoo Saints, while Sidney Rigdon, James Strang, and the Smith family embodied other plausible logics rooted in Joseph’s own movement. Later victory cannot be projected backward as an unambiguous divine designation.
The LDS defense therefore explains how Brigham Young’s church prevailed; it does not show that Joseph left a clear, publicly documented succession mechanism. For a movement claiming that Christ restored one uniquely authorized priesthood after all other churches apostatized, the immediate multiplication of credible rival authorities is a serious internal problem. It also defeats the apologetic claim that fragmentation alone proves historic Christianity lost the Church.
Key Sources
- LDS Church History Topics, “Succession of Church Leadership”: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/succession-of-church-leadership?lang=eng
- Joseph Smith Papers, introduction discussing the post-1844 succession struggle: https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/intro/introduction-to-administrative-records-volume-1
- Joseph Smith Papers, James Strang succession claim: https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/event/james-j-strang-claimed-to-be-jss-successor
- BYU Studies, “Sidney Rigdon’s Plea to the Saints”: https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/sidney-rigdons-plea-to-the-saints-transcription-of-thomas-bullocks-shorthand-notes-from-the-august-8-1844-morning-meeting
- LDS Church History Topics, Joseph and Emma Smith family / Joseph Smith III: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/joseph-and-emma-hale-smith-family?lang=eng