what is a general characteristic of a lewis acid

A third, only marginally related concept was proposed in 1923 by Gilbert N. Lewis, which includes reactions with acid-base characteristics that do not involve a proton transfer. A Lewis acid is a species that accepts a pair of electrons from another species; in other words, it is an electron pair acceptor.[5] Brønsted acid-base reactions are proton transfer reactions while Lewis acid-base reactions are electron pair transfers. Many Lewis acids are not Brønsted-Lowry acids. Contrast how the following reactions are described in terms of acid-base chemistry:

Acid

An acid is a molecule or ion capable of donating a hydron (proton or hydrogen ion H+), or, alternatively, capable of forming a covalent bond with an electron pair (a Lewis acid).[1]

The first category of acids is the proton donors or Brønsted acids. In the special case of aqueous solutions, proton donors form the hydronium ion H3O+ and are known as Arrhenius acids. Brønsted and Lowry generalized the Arrhenius theory to include non-aqueous solvents. A Brønsted or Arrhenius acid usually contains a hydrogen atom bonded to a chemical structure that is still energetically favorable after loss of H+.

Aqueous Arrhenius acids have characteristic properties which provide a practical description of an acid.[2] Acids form aqueous solutions with a sour taste, can turn blue litmus red, and react with bases and certain metals (like calcium) to form salts. The word acid is derived from the Latin acidus/acÄ“re meaning sour.[3] An aqueous solution of an acid has a pH less than 7 and is colloquially also referred to as 'acid' (as in 'dissolved in acid'), while the strict definition refers only to the solute.[1] A lower pH means a higher acidity, and thus a higher concentration of positive hydrogen ions in the solution. Chemicals or substances having the property of an acid are said to be acidic.

Common aqueous acids include hydrochloric acid (a solution of hydrogen chloride which is found in gastric acid in the stomach and activates digestive enzymes), acetic acid (vinegar is a dilute aqueous solution of this liquid), sulfuric acid (used in car batteries), and citric acid (found in citrus fruits). As these examples show, acids (in the colloquial sense) can be solutions or pure substances, and can be derived from acids (in the strict[1] sense) that are solids, liquids, or gases. Strong acids and some concentrated weak acids are corrosive, but there are exceptions such as carboranes and boric acid.

The second category of acids are Lewis acids, which form a covalent bond with an electron pair. An example is boron trifluoride (BF3), whose boron atom has a vacant orbital which can form a covalent bond by sharing a lone pair of electrons on an atom in a base, for example the nitrogen atom in ammonia (NH3). Lewis considered this as a generalization of the Brønsted definition, so that an acid is a chemical species that accepts electron pairs either directly or by releasing protons (H+) into the solution, which then accept electron pairs. However, hydrogen chloride, acetic acid, and most other Brønsted-Lowry acids cannot form a covalent bond with an electron pair and are therefore not Lewis acids.[4] Conversely, many Lewis acids are not Arrhenius or Brønsted-Lowry acids. In modern terminology, an acid is implicitly a Brønsted acid and not a Lewis acid, since chemists almost always refer to a Lewis acid explicitly as a Lewis acid.[4]

Modern definitions are concerned with the fundamental chemical reactions common to all acids.

Most acids encountered in everyday life are aqueous solutions, or can be dissolved in water, so the Arrhenius and BrÃ¸nsted-Lowry definitions are the most relevant.

The BrÃ¸nsted-Lowry definition is the most widely used definition; unless otherwise specified, acid-base reactions are assumed to involve the transfer of a proton (H+) from an acid to a base.

Hydronium ions are acids according to all three definitions. Interestingly, although alcohols and amines can be BrÃ¸nsted-Lowry acids, they can also function as Lewis bases due to the lone pairs of electrons on their oxygen and nitrogen atoms.

The Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius attributed the properties of acidity to hydrogen ions (H+) or protons in 1884. An Arrhenius acid is a substance that, when added to water, increases the concentration of H+ ions in the water.[4][5] Note that chemists often write H+(aq) and refer to the hydrogen ion when describing acid-base reactions but the free hydrogen nucleus, a proton, does not exist alone in water, it exists as the hydronium ion, H3O+. Thus, an Arrhenius acid can also be described as a substance that increases the concentration of hydronium ions when added to water. Examples include molecular substances such as HCl and acetic acid.

An Arrhenius base, on the other hand, is a substance which increases the concentration of hydroxide (OHâˆ’) ions when dissolved in water. This decreases the concentration of hydronium because the ions react to form H2O molecules:

H3O+
(aq) + OH−
(aq) ⇌ H2O(l) + H2O(l)

Due to this equilibrium, any increase in the concentration of hydronium is accompanied by a decrease in the concentration of hydroxide. Thus, an Arrhenius acid could also be said to be one that decreases hydroxide concentration, while an Arrhenius base increases it.

In an acidic solution, the concentration of hydronium ions is greater than 10âˆ’7 moles per liter. Since pH is defined as the negative logarithm of the concentration of hydronium ions, acidic solutions thus have a pH of less than 7.

While the Arrhenius concept is useful for describing many reactions, it is also quite limited in its scope. In 1923 chemists Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and Thomas Martin Lowry independently recognized that acid-base reactions involve the transfer of a proton. A Brønsted-Lowry acid (or simply Brønsted acid) is a species that donates a proton to a Brønsted-Lowry base.[5] Brønsted-Lowry acid-base theory has several advantages over Arrhenius theory. Consider the following reactions of acetic acid (CH3COOH), the organic acid that gives vinegar its characteristic taste:

Both theories easily describe the first reaction: CH3COOH acts as an Arrhenius acid because it acts as a source of H3O+ when dissolved in water, and it acts as a Brønsted acid by donating a proton to water. In the second example CH3COOH undergoes the same transformation, in this case donating a proton to ammonia (NH3), but does not relate to the Arrhenius definition of an acid because the reaction does not produce hydronium. Nevertheless, CH3COOH is both an Arrhenius and a Brønsted-Lowry acid.

BrÃ¸nsted-Lowry theory can be used to describe reactions of molecular compounds in nonaqueous solution or the gas phase. Hydrogen chloride (HCl) and ammonia combine under several different conditions to form ammonium chloride, NH4Cl. In aqueous solution HCl behaves as hydrochloric acid and exists as hydronium and chloride ions. The following reactions illustrate the limitations of Arrhenius's definition:

As with the acetic acid reactions, both definitions work for the first example, where water is the solvent and hydronium ion is formed by the HCl solute. The next two reactions do not involve the formation of ions but are still proton-transfer reactions. In the second reaction hydrogen chloride and ammonia (dissolved in benzene) react to form solid ammonium chloride in a benzene solvent and in the third gaseous HCl and NH3 combine to form the solid.

In the first reaction a fluoride ion, F−, gives up an electron pair to boron trifluoride to form the product tetrafluoroborate. Fluoride "loses" a pair of valence electrons because the electrons shared in the B—F bond are located in the region of space between the two atomic nuclei and are therefore more distant from the fluoride nucleus than they are in the lone fluoride ion. BF3 is a Lewis acid because it accepts the electron pair from fluoride. This reaction cannot be described in terms of Brønsted theory because there is no proton transfer. The second reaction can be described using either theory. A proton is transferred from an unspecified Brønsted acid to ammonia, a Brønsted base; alternatively, ammonia acts as a Lewis base and transfers a lone pair of electrons to form a bond with a hydrogen ion. The species that gains the electron pair is the Lewis acid; for example, the oxygen atom in H3O+ gains a pair of electrons when one of the H—O bonds is broken and the electrons shared in the bond become localized on oxygen. Depending on the context, a Lewis acid may also be described as an oxidizer or an electrophile. Organic Brønsted acids, such as acetic, citric, or oxalic acid, are not Lewis acids.[4] They dissociate in water to produce a Lewis acid, H+, but at the same time also yield an equal amount of a Lewis base (acetate, citrate, or oxalate, respectively, for the acids mentioned). Few, if any, of the acids discussed in the following are Lewis acids.

Reactions of acids are often generalized in the form HA ⇌ H+ + A−, where HA represents the acid and A− is the conjugate base. This reaction is referred to as protolysis. The protonated form (HA) of an acid is also sometimes referred to as the free acid.[6]

Acid-base conjugate pairs differ by one proton, and can be interconverted by the addition or removal of a proton (protonation and deprotonation, respectively). Note that the acid can be the charged species and the conjugate base can be neutral in which case the generalized reaction scheme could be written as HA+ â‡Œ H+ + A. In solution there exists an equilibrium between the acid and its conjugate base. The equilibrium constant K is an expression of the equilibrium concentrations of the molecules or the ions in solution. Brackets indicate concentration, such that [H2O] means the concentration of H2O. The acid dissociation constant Ka is generally used in the context of acid-base reactions. The numerical value of Ka is equal to the product of the concentrations of the products divided by the concentration of the reactants, where the reactant is the acid (HA) and the products are the conjugate base and H+.

The stronger of two acids will have a higher Ka than the weaker acid; the ratio of hydrogen ions to acid will be higher for the stronger acid as the stronger acid has a greater tendency to lose its proton. Because the range of possible values for Ka spans many orders of magnitude, a more manageable constant, pKa is more frequently used, where pKa = −log10 Ka. Stronger acids have a smaller pKa than weaker acids. Experimentally determined pKa at 25 °C in aqueous solution are often quoted in textbooks and reference material.

In the classical naming system, acids are named according to their anions. That ionic suffix is dropped and replaced with a new suffix (and sometimes prefix), according to the table below. For example, HCl has chloride as its anion, so the -ide suffix makes it take the form hydrochloric acid. In the IUPAC naming system, "aqueous" is simply added to the name of the ionic compound. Thus, for hydrogen chloride, the IUPAC name would be aqueous hydrogen chloride. The prefix "hydro-" is added only if the acid is made up of just hydrogen and one other element.

Classical naming system:

The strength of an acid refers to its ability or tendency to lose a proton. A strong acid is one that completely dissociates in water; in other words, one mole of a strong acid HA dissolves in water yielding one mole of H+ and one mole of the conjugate base, A−, and none of the protonated acid HA. In contrast, a weak acid only partially dissociates and at equilibrium both the acid and the conjugate base are in solution. Examples of strong acids are hydrochloric acid (HCl), hydroiodic acid (HI), hydrobromic acid (HBr), perchloric acid (HClO4), nitric acid (HNO3) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4). In water each of these essentially ionizes 100%. The stronger an acid is, the more easily it loses a proton, H+. Two key factors that contribute to the ease of deprotonation are the polarity of the H—A bond and the size of atom A, which determines the strength of the H—A bond. Acid strengths are also often discussed in terms of the stability of the conjugate base.

Stronger acids have a larger Ka and a more negative pKa than weaker acids.

Sulfonic acids, which are organic oxyacids, are a class of strong acids. A common example is toluenesulfonic acid (tosylic acid). Unlike sulfuric acid itself, sulfonic acids can be solids. In fact, polystyrene functionalized into polystyrene sulfonate is a solid strongly acidic plastic that is filterable.

Superacids are acids stronger than 100% sulfuric acid. Examples of superacids are fluoroantimonic acid, magic acid and perchloric acid. Superacids can permanently protonate water to give ionic, crystalline hydronium "salts". They can also quantitatively stabilize carbocations.

While Ka measures the strength of an acid compound, the strength of an aqueous acid solution is measured by pH, which is an indication of the concentration of hydronium in the solution. The pH of a simple solution of an acid compound in water is determined by the dilution of the compound and the compound's Ka.

Monoprotic acids are those acids that are able to donate one proton per molecule during the process of dissociation (sometimes called ionization) as shown below (symbolized by HA):

Common examples of monoprotic acids in mineral acids include hydrochloric acid (HCl) and nitric acid (HNO3). On the other hand, for organic acids the term mainly indicates the presence of one carboxylic acid group and sometimes these acids are known as monocarboxylic acid. Examples in organic acids include formic acid (HCOOH), acetic acid (CH3COOH) and benzoic acid (C6H5COOH).

Polyprotic acids, also known as polybasic acids, are able to donate more than one proton per acid molecule, in contrast to monoprotic acids that only donate one proton per molecule. Specific types of polyprotic acids have more specific names, such as diprotic acid (two potential protons to donate) and triprotic acid (three potential protons to donate).

A diprotic acid (here symbolized by H2A) can undergo one or two dissociations depending on the pH. Each dissociation has its own dissociation constant, Ka1 and Ka2.

The first dissociation constant is typically greater than the second; i.e., Ka1 > Ka2. For example, sulfuric acid (H2SO4) can donate one proton to form the bisulfate anion (HSO−
4), for which Ka1 is very large; then it can donate a second proton to form the sulfate anion (SO2−
4), wherein the Ka2 is intermediate strength. The large Ka1 for the first dissociation makes sulfuric a strong acid. In a similar manner, the weak unstable carbonic acid (H2CO3) can lose one proton to form bicarbonate anion (HCO−
3) and lose a second to form carbonate anion (CO2−
3). Both Ka values are small, but Ka1 > Ka2.

A triprotic acid (H3A) can undergo one, two, or three dissociations and has three dissociation constants, where Ka1 > Ka2 > Ka3.

An inorganic example of a triprotic acid is orthophosphoric acid (H3PO4), usually just called phosphoric acid. All three protons can be successively lost to yield H2PO−
4, then HPO2−
4, and finally PO3−
4, the orthophosphate ion, usually just called phosphate. Even though the positions of the three protons on the original phosphoric acid molecule are equivalent, the successive Ka values differ since it is energetically less favorable to lose a proton if the conjugate base is more negatively charged. An organic example of a triprotic acid is citric acid, which can successively lose three protons to finally form the citrate ion.

Although the subsequent loss of each hydrogen ion is less favorable, all of the conjugate bases are present in solution. The fractional concentration, α (alpha), for each species can be calculated. For example, a generic diprotic acid will generate 3 species in solution: H2A, HA−, and A2−. The fractional concentrations can be calculated as below when given either the pH (which can be converted to the [H+]) or the concentrations of the acid with all its conjugate bases:

A plot of these fractional concentrations against pH, for given K1 and K2, is known as a Bjerrum plot. A pattern is observed in the above equations and can be expanded to the general n -protic acid that has been deprotonated i -times:

where K0 = 1 and the other K-terms are the dissociation constants for the acid.

Neutralization is the reaction between an acid and a base, producing a salt and neutralized base; for example, hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide form sodium chloride and water:

Neutralization is the basis of titration, where a pH indicator shows equivalence point when the equivalent number of moles of a base have been added to an acid. It is often wrongly assumed that neutralization should result in a solution with pH 7.0, which is only the case with similar acid and base strengths during a reaction.

Neutralization with a base weaker than the acid results in a weakly acidic salt. An example is the weakly acidic ammonium chloride, which is produced from the strong acid hydrogen chloride and the weak base ammonia. Conversely, neutralizing a weak acid with a strong base gives a weakly basic salt, e.g. sodium fluoride from hydrogen fluoride and sodium hydroxide.

In order for a protonated acid to lose a proton, the pH of the system must rise above the pKa of the acid. The decreased concentration of H+ in that basic solution shifts the equilibrium towards the conjugate base form (the deprotonated form of the acid). In lower-pH (more acidic) solutions, there is a high enough H+ concentration in the solution to cause the acid to remain in its protonated form.

Solutions of weak acids and salts of their conjugate bases form buffer solutions.

There are numerous uses for acids. Acids are often used to remove rust and other corrosion from metals in a process known as pickling. They may be used as an electrolyte in a wet cell battery, such as sulfuric acid in a car battery.

Strong acids, sulfuric acid in particular, are widely used in mineral processing. For example, phosphate minerals react with sulfuric acid to produce phosphoric acid for the production of phosphate fertilizers, and zinc is produced by dissolving zinc oxide into sulfuric acid, purifying the solution and electrowinning.

In the chemical industry, acids react in neutralization reactions to produce salts. For example, nitric acid reacts with ammonia to produce ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer. Additionally, carboxylic acids can be esterified with alcohols, to produce esters.

Acids are used as additives to drinks and foods, as they alter their taste and serve as preservatives. Phosphoric acid, for example, is a component of cola drinks. Acetic acid is used in day-to-day life as vinegar. Carbonic acid is an important part of some cola drinks and soda. Citric acid is used as a preservative in sauces and pickles.

Tartaric acid is an important component of some commonly used foods like unripened mangoes and tamarind. Natural fruits and vegetables also contain acids. Citric acid is present in oranges, lemon and other citrus fruits. Oxalic acid is present in tomatoes, spinach, and especially in carambola and rhubarb; rhubarb leaves and unripe carambolas are toxic because of high concentrations of oxalic acid.

Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) is an essential vitamin for the human body and is present in such foods as amla (Indian gooseberry), lemon, citrus fruits, and guava.

Certain acids are used as drugs. Acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin) is used as a pain killer and for bringing down fevers.

Acids play important roles in the human body. The hydrochloric acid present in the stomach aids digestion by breaking down large and complex food molecules. Amino acids are required for synthesis of proteins required for growth and repair of body tissues. Fatty acids are also required for growth and repair of body tissues. Nucleic acids are important for the manufacturing of DNA and RNA and transmitting of traits to offspring through genes. Carbonic acid is important for maintenance of pH equilibrium in the body.

Acids are used as catalysts in industrial and organic chemistry; for example, sulfuric acid is used in very large quantities in the alkylation process to produce gasoline. Some acids, such as sulfuric, phosphoric, and hydrochloric acids, also effect dehydration and condensation reactions. In biochemistry, many enzymes employ acid catalysis.[7]

Many biologically important molecules are acids. Nucleic acids, which contain acidic phosphate groups, include DNA and RNA. Nucleic acids contain the genetic code that determines many of an organism's characteristics, and is passed from parents to offspring. DNA contains the chemical blueprint for the synthesis of proteins which are made up of amino acid subunits. Cell membranes contain fatty acid esters such as phospholipids.

An α-amino acid has a central carbon (the α or alpha carbon) which is covalently bonded to a carboxyl group (thus they are carboxylic acids), an amino group, a hydrogen atom and a variable group. The variable group, also called the R group or side chain, determines the identity and many of the properties of a specific amino acid. In glycine, the simplest amino acid, the R group is a hydrogen atom, but in all other amino acids it is contains one or more carbon atoms bonded to hydrogens, and may contain other elements such as sulfur, oxygen or nitrogen. With the exception of glycine, naturally occurring amino acids are chiral and almost invariably occur in the L-configuration. Peptidoglycan, found in some bacterial cell walls contains some D-amino acids. At physiological pH, typically around 7, free amino acids exist in a charged form, where the acidic carboxyl group (-COOH) loses a proton (-COO−) and the basic amine group (-NH2) gains a proton (-NH+
3). The entire molecule has a net neutral charge and is a zwitterion, with the exception of amino acids with basic or acidic side chains. Aspartic acid, for example, possesses one protonated amine and two deprotonated carboxyl groups, for a net charge of −1 at physiological pH.

Fatty acids and fatty acid derivatives are another group of carboxylic acids that play a significant role in biology. These contain long hydrocarbon chains and a carboxylic acid group on one end. The cell membrane of nearly all organisms is primarily made up of a phospholipid bilayer, a micelle of hydrophobic fatty acid esters with polar, hydrophilic phosphate "head" groups. Membranes contain additional components, some of which can participate in acid-base reactions.

In humans and many other animals, hydrochloric acid is a part of the gastric acid secreted within the stomach to help hydrolyze proteins and polysaccharides, as well as converting the inactive pro-enzyme, pepsinogen into the enzyme, pepsin. Some organisms produce acids for defense; for example, ants produce formic acid.

Acid-base equilibrium plays a critical role in regulating mammalian breathing. Oxygen gas (O2) drives cellular respiration, the process by which animals release the chemical potential energy stored in food, producing carbon dioxide (CO2) as a byproduct. Oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged in the lungs, and the body responds to changing energy demands by adjusting the rate of ventilation. For example, during periods of exertion the body rapidly breaks down stored carbohydrates and fat, releasing CO2 into the blood stream. In aqueous solutions such as blood CO2 exists in equilibrium with carbonic acid and bicarbonate ion.

It is the decrease in pH that signals the brain to breathe faster and deeper, expelling the excess CO2 and resupplying the cells with O2.

Cell membranes are generally impermeable to charged or large, polar molecules because of the lipophilic fatty acyl chains comprising their interior. Many biologically important molecules, including a number of pharmaceutical agents, are organic weak acids which can cross the membrane in their protonated, uncharged form but not in their charged form (i.e. as the conjugate base). For this reason the activity of many drugs can be enhanced or inhibited by the use of antacids or acidic foods. The charged form, however, is often more soluble in blood and cytosol, both aqueous environments. When the extracellular environment is more acidic than the neutral pH within the cell, certain acids will exist in their neutral form and will be membrane soluble, allowing them to cross the phospholipid bilayer. Acids that lose a proton at the intracellular pH will exist in their soluble, charged form and are thus able to diffuse through the cytosol to their target. Ibuprofen, aspirin and penicillin are examples of drugs that are weak acids.

A sulfonic acid has the general formula RS(=O)2â€“OH, where R is an organic radical.

A carboxylic acid has the general formula R-C(O)OH, where R is an organic radical. The carboxyl group -C(O)OH contains a carbonyl group, C=O, and a hydroxyl group, O-H.

Halogenation at alpha position increases acid strength, so that the following acids are all stronger than acetic acid.

Normal carboxylic acids are the direct union of a carbonyl group and a hydroxyl group. In vinylogous carboxylic acids, a carbon-carbon double bond separates the carbonyl and hydroxyl groups.


what role did hampton roads play in world war i

Beginning in 1917, as the United States became involved in World War I under President Woodrow Wilson, formerly rural Sewell's Point became the site of what grew to become the largest Naval Base in the world which was established by the United States Navy and is now known as the Naval Station Norfolk.

History of Hampton Roads

The history of Hampton Roads dates to 1607, when Jamestown was founded. Two wars have taken place in addition to many other historical events.

The first colonists arrived in 1607 when English Captain Christopher Newport's three ships, his flagship Susan Constant, the smaller Godspeed, and even smaller Discovery landed in April 1607 at Cape Henry along the Atlantic Coast in today's City of Virginia Beach, an event now known as the "First Landing." However, they moved on, under orders from the Virginia Company of London, the crews and new colonists sought a more sheltered area up one of the rivers. Their major concern was other European competitors such as the Spanish, who had earlier discovered the Chesapeake Bay and Virginia's rivers, and had even in 1570 begun a small settlement on the Virginia Peninsula known as the Ajacán Mission, which had failed.

During 18 days of exploring the area, they surely saw the enormous harbor of Hampton Roads, and some of the party must have appreciated its possibilities. However, after exploring the James River west at least as far as present-day Hopewell, they agreed upon Jamestown Island, where they established the first English speaking settlement to survive in the New World on 14 May 1607.

The site was deep enough water for ships to dock but was also easily defendable. But despite the defensive advantages of that location against Spanish attacks, the low and marshy site at Jamestown proved a very poor choice in many other ways. More than five years of fragile existence, disease-carrying insects and high mortality rates followed including the Starving Time of 1609-10 when over 80% of the 500 colonists perished before the future of the Virginia Colony began to appear more promising. The change came about with the just-in-time arrival of a new Governor, Lord Delaware, and a new colonist with a successful business idea named John Rolfe.

For centuries, the harbor and rivers of Hampton Roads have been ideal locations for both commerce and for many major shipyards. Some were established as early as the late 17th century such as the Gosport Navy Yard in what is now the City of Portsmouth.

The harbor was also a key point for military control of the region. Even the earliest settlers created fortifications at Old Point Comfort by 1610 against potential attacks by ships of Spanish or other unfriendly European forces.

Important conflicts of the American Revolutionary War involved Norfolk and Craney Island (at the mouth of the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth). It was at Norfolk where the last Royal Governor of the Virginia Colony, Lord Dunmore, departed mainland Virginia for the last time.

The first naval action of the War of 1812 took place on 8 July 1812, when the Bermuda sloop, HMS Whiting, its crew oblivious to the US declaration of war, lowered anchor in Hampton Roads. As its captain was being rowed ashore, the Royal Naval vessel was seized by the American privateer Dash, which happened to be leaving port.

Under the new United States government, by the 1830s, the entrance from Chesapeake Bay was defended by Fort Monroe, built by the U.S. Army beginning in 1819 on Old Point Comfort, and by Fort Wool, built as Fort Calhoun in 1829, on a small island called the Rip Raps near the middle of the channel (and now adjacent to one of the manmade islands of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel). Much work in the building of these fortresses in the early 19th century was done by a 24-year-old engineer in the U.S. Army, a Lieutenant named Robert E. Lee

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), the famous Battle of Hampton Roads between the first American ironclad warships, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (ex-USS Merrimack) took place off Sewell's Point, on March 8–9, 1862. That battle was inconclusive, but later in 1862, Union forces took control of Hampton Roads, Norfolk, and the lower James River. However, their efforts to take the Confederate capital of Richmond via the James River with their vastly superior Navy were thwarted by a strong Confederate battery position high above a bend in the river about 8 miles (13 km) below Richmond at Drewry's Bluff.

Fort Monroe was the launching place for Union General George McClellan's massive 1862 Peninsula Campaign, a land campaign of many months which began at Fort Monroe and advanced up the Virginia Peninsula, with a Siege at Yorktown and another battle at Williamsburg before the Union Army almost literally reached the gates of Richmond, ending at the Chickahominy River within earshot of the city's church bells, according to the journals of Union soldiers. However, the Confederates mounted a credible defense of their capital city, and McClellan's campaign failed to capture Richmond, ending in the Seven Days Battles, during which the Union Army withdrew, effectively extending the War for almost three more years.

On February 3, 1865, as the Confederacy was near total collapse, President Abraham Lincoln met with three senior Confederates in an effort to negotiate for peace (the "Hampton Roads Conference"). Lincoln wanted the states to return to the Union and indicated the Union would pay for the slaves. The Confederates insisted their demand was complete independence, so the 4-hour conference ended in failure.[1]

Beginning in 1861, some of the former slaves found refuge near Fort Monroe, which remained in Union hands throughout the War. There, the commander, Union Army General Benjamin F. Butler, a lawyer by training, declared them to be "Contraband of war". On that legal basis, Union forces refused to return them to Confederate owners as would have been the practice even in many "free states" before Virginia seceded and declared itself a foreign power. Soon, word spread, and many slaves were understandably anxious to become "contraband."

Although many of the "contraband" men at Hampton and elsewhere during the War volunteered and became part of the United States Colored Troops (USCT), others and the women and children grew in increasing numbers near Fort Monroe in Elizabeth City County. From the wood and materials salvaged from the remains of the Town of Hampton, which had been burned earlier by retreating Confederates, they built the Grand Contraband Camp, near, but outside the protective walls of the Army base. It was the first self-contained African American community in the United States.

Close by, was (and still is) the Emancipation Oak, on the grounds of the school for them which grew to become Hampton University. Beginning as a normal school founded to train teachers, Hampton University was established by church groups and former Union Army officers. Early educators of the era included Mary Smith Peake and former Union Army General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, who was himself the son of missionaries, and had commanded a USCT force during the War. Among the earlier students was a young former slave named Booker T. Washington, who became a famed African-American educator and was the first head of present-day Tuskegee University. The Emancipation Oak is part of the official logo of the modern city of Hampton.

The Jamestown Exposition for the 300th anniversary of the 1607 founding of Jamestown was held at Sewell's Point in a rural section of Norfolk County in 1907.

President Theodore Roosevelt arrived by water in the harbor of Hampton Roads, as did other notable persons such as Mark Twain and Henry Huttleston Rogers, who both arrived aboard the latter's steam yacht Kanawha. A major naval display was featured, and the U.S. Great White Fleet made an appearance. The leaders of the U.S. Navy apparently did not fail to note the ideal harbor conditions, as was later proved.

Twice in the 20th century, families of mostly African American heritage were displaced in entire communities when land along the northern side of the Peninsula primarily in York County west of Yorktown was taken in large tracts for military use during World War I and World War II, creating the present-day U.S. Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, which includes Cheatham Annex, and a former Seabee base which became Camp Peary.

Communities including "the Reservation", Halstead's Point, Penniman, Bigler's Mill, and Magruder were all absorbed into the large military bases.

Although some left the area entirely, many of the displaced families chose to relocate nearby to Grove, an unincorporated town in southeastern James City County where many generations of some of those families now reside. From a population estimated at only 37 in 1895, Grove had grown to an estimated 1,100 families by the end of the 20th century. (To its north, Grove actually borders the Naval Weapons Station property and on its extreme east, a portion of the U.S. Army's land at Fort Eustis extends across Skiffe's Creek, although there is no direct access to either base).

A dream of one Episcopalian priest to save his 18th century church building was to expand to create the world's largest living museum. Replacing Jamestown and the end of the 17th century, Williamsburg had been capital of the Colony and the new State of Virginia from 1699-1780. After the capital moved to Richmond in 1780, Williamsburg became a quieter and sometimes described as "sleepy" small town. It saw some action during the Battle of Williamsburg of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign during the Civil War. However, it was not located along any major waterway and did not have railroad access until 1881. Perhaps due to the secure inland location originally known as Middle Plantation, for Williamsburg, growth and great expansion of commerce in the 19th century did not occur as rapidly as in many other Virginia cities. The main activities were the College of William and Mary and Eastern State Hospital, each historic institutions in their own right. In addition to the city's historic past, quite a few buildings of antiquity from the 18th century were still extant, although time was taking a toll by the early 20th century.

The Reverend Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin of Bruton Parish Church initially had wanted merely to save his historic church building. This he accomplished by 1907. He later served in Rochester, New York for many years. Upon returning to Williamsburg in 1923, he began to realize that many of the other colonial-era buildings also remained, but were in deteriorating condition, and their continued longevity was at risk.

Goodwin dreamed of a much larger restoration along the lines of what he had accomplished with his historic church. A cleric of modest means, he sought support and financing from a number of sources before successfully drawing the interests and major financial support of Standard Oil heir and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. The result of their combined efforts was the creation of Colonial Williamsburg, which included a restoration of the Wren Building at the College of William and Mary and a change of much of the downtown Williamsburg area into a 301-acre (1.2Â km2) Historic Area of restored and replica buildings and surrounds to celebrate the patriots and the early history of America.

By the 1930s, Colonial Williamsburg had become the centerpiece of the Historic Triangle of Colonial Virginia. These were, of course, Jamestown, where the colony started, Williamsburg, and Yorktown, where independence from Great Britain was won. The three points were joined by the U.S. National Park Service's Colonial Parkway, a remarkable accomplishment built over a period of 27 years. The Historic Triangle area of the Hampton Roads region became one of the largest tourist attractions in the entire world.

In Dr. Goodwin's words: "Williamsburg is Jamestown continued, and Yorktown is Williamsburg vindicated."

In 1957, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel was the first bridge-tunnel complex in the world, to be followed by the area's much longer Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in 1963.

In the 1960s, the first astronauts of Project Mercury trained at the NASA facility adjacent to Hampton's Langley Air Force Base. Local features including Mercury Boulevard commemorate this fact.

As the current communities in the Hampton Roads region were formed and grew from the Colonial period to statehood and modern times, the political structure of many areas in Virginia changed. Between 1952 and 1976, a wave of consolidations of local governments led to almost the entire southeastern portion of Virginia consisting of a group of adjoining independent cities, eventually numbering eight. Joining the seven major cities of Hampton Roads was the comparatively tiny City of Poquoson, which had formerly been an incorporated town in York County).

Many incorporated (formally constituted) localities became legally defunct, though mostly not abandoned by their citizens, with the notable exception of Jamestown. For search of genealogical, land, and other historical records, it may be necessary to find these old names.

The following is a partial listing of defunct political subdivisions in the Hampton Roads area with approximate formation and dissolution dates. Note: Former towns which grew to become cities of the same name are not listed separately, nor are unincorporated towns. More information about dates and dispositions may be found in most individual articles by following the links.

In order of date founded:


where is the waist located on the body

The waist is the part of the abdomen between the rib cage and hips. On people with slim bodies, the waist is the narrowest part of the torso.

Waist

The waistline refers to the horizontal line where the waist is narrowest, or to the general appearance of the waist.

Because of this and because the waist is often synonymous with the stomach, one can become confused as to the exact location of the waist. Another confusing factor is that the waistline differs on different people. A study[1] showed that self-reported measurements as opposed to measurement done by a technician, underestimated waist circumference and this underestimation increased with increased body size. In the study, waist circumference measured at the level of the umbilicus was larger than that measured at the natural waist. To locate the natural waistline, one need simply stand upright and then tilt over to the side keeping the legs and hips straight. Where the torso creases is the natural waistline.

Strictly, the waist circumference is measured at a level midway between the lowest rib and the iliac crest.[2] An alternative approximation of high relevance in anthropometry is Small of the Back (SOB) + 2cm.[3] In anthropometrics, the location of the waist (height) can be predicted as 72% of the neck height, or between the iliac crest (60% of total height) and the lowest palpable rib (64% of total height).[4]

The waist-hip ratio equals the waist circumference divided by the hip circumference. Practically, however, the waist is usually measured at the smallest circumference of the natural waist, usually just above the belly button.[5] In case the waist is convex rather than concave, such as is the case in pregnancy and obesity, the waist may be measured at a vertical level 1Â inch above the navel.[6] It is important to note that variables such as posture significantly influence the measurement of the waist, and therefore any measurements for a group need to maintain a constant posture between the subjects.[7]

The size of a person's waist or waist circumference, indicates abdominal obesity. Excess abdominal fat is a risk factor for developing heart disease and other obesity related diseases. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)[8] classifies the risk of obesity-related diseases as high if men have a waist circumference greater than 102 cm (40 in) and women have a waist circumference greater than 88 cm (35 in).

A study published in the European Heart Journal April 2007[9] showed that waist circumference and waist-hip ratio were  predictors of cardiovascular events.

Waistâ€“hip ratio is the ratio of the circumference of the waist to that of the hips. It measures the proportion by which fat is distributed around the torso.

Waistâ€“hip ratios of 0.7 for women and 0.9 for men have been shown to correlate strongly with general health and fertility. Colloquially this shape is compared to the hourglass shape.[10]

In modern clothing the region referred to as the waist is considerably below the waist as defined anatomically.
With the advent of pants and skirts that do not require support from above, the clothing waist moved down to a position where the body starts to expand to form the buttocks and a support is therefore available. However, the waist region remains a highly important measurement and anthropometric landmark in garment construction.[11]

Jewellery, such as a belly chain, may be worn around either the clothing or anatomical waist.

Waist reduction or waist training refer to the act of wearing a corset or other constricting garment to reduce or alter the waistline.  The four floating ribs may be permanently compressed or moved by such garments.  A girdle may also be used to alter the appearance of the waist.

Waist reduction may be used simply to reduce the width of the waist.  This change can be permanent or temporary.

Waist training may be used to achieve a certain permanent waist shape, such as a pipe-stem waist.

Definition: "middle part of the body," also "part of a garment fitted for the waist, portion of a garment that covers the waist" (but, due to fashion styles, often above or below it), probably from Old English *wæst "growth," hence, "where the body grows," from Proto-Germanic *wahs-tu- (cognates: Old English wæstm, Old Norse vöxtr, Swedish växt, Old High German wahst "growth, increase," Gothic wahstus "stature," Old English weaxan "to grow".[12]


who founded the church of jesus christ of the latter day saints quizlet

Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 â€“ June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was twenty-four, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death fourteen years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religious culture that continues to the present.

Joseph Smith

Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont. By 1817, he had moved with his family to what became known as the burned-over district of western New York, an area of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening. According to Smith, he experienced a series of visions, including one in which he saw "two personages" (presumably God the Father and Jesus Christ) and others in which an angel directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published what he said was an English translation of these plates, the Book of Mormon. The same year he organized the Church of Christ, calling it a restoration of the early Christian church. Members of the church were later called "Latter Day Saints", or "Mormons", and in 1838, Smith announced a revelation that renamed the church as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communalistic American Zion. They first gathered in Kirtland, Ohio, and established an outpost in Independence, Missouri, which was intended to be Zion's "center place". During the 1830s, Smith sent out missionaries, published revelations, and supervised construction of the expensive Kirtland Temple. The collapse of the church-sponsored Kirtland Safety Society and violent skirmishes with non-Mormon Missourians caused Smith and his followers to establish a new settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois, where he became a spiritual and political leader. In 1844, Smith and the Nauvoo city council angered non-Mormons by destroying a newspaper that had criticized Smith's power and practice of polygamy.[12] After Smith was imprisoned in Carthage, Illinois, he was killed when a mob stormed the jailhouse.

Smith published many revelations and other texts that his followers regard as scripture. His teachings include unique views about the nature of God, cosmology, family structures, political organization, and religious collectivism. His followers regard him as a prophet comparable to Moses and Elijah, and several religious denominations consider themselves the continuation of the church he organized, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ.

Joseph Smith Jr. was born on December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont, to Lucy Mack Smith and her husband Joseph Sr., a merchant and farmer.[13] After suffering a crippling bone infection when he was seven, the younger Smith used crutches for three years.[14] In 1816–17, after an ill-fated business venture and three years of crop failures, the Smith family moved to the western New York village of Palmyra, and eventually took a mortgage on a 100-acre (40 ha) farm in the nearby town of Manchester.

During the Second Great Awakening, the region was a hotbed of religious enthusiasm. Between 1817 and 1825, there were several camp meetings and revivals in the Palmyra area.[15] Although Smith's parents disagreed about religion, the family was caught up in this excitement.[16] Smith later said he became interested in religion by about the age of twelve. As a teenager, he may have been sympathetic to Methodism.[17] With other family members, Smith also engaged in religious folk magic, which was a relatively common practice in that time and place.[18] Both his parents and his maternal grandfather reportedly had visions or dreams that they believed communicated messages from God.[19] Smith said that, although he had become concerned about the welfare of his soul, he was confused by the claims of competing religious denominations.[20]

Years later, Smith claimed to have received a vision that resolved his religious confusion.[21] In 1820, while praying in a wooded area near his home, he said that God, in a vision, had told him his sins were forgiven and that all contemporary churches had "turned aside from the gospel."[22] Smith said he told the experience to a preacher, who dismissed the story with contempt. The event would later grow in importance to Smith's followers, who now regard it as the first event in the gradual restoration of Christ's church to earth. Until the 1840s, however, the experience was largely unknown, even to most Mormons.[23] Smith may have originally understood the event simply as a personal conversion.[24]

According to his later accounts, Smith was visited by an angel named Moroni, while praying one night in 1823. Smith said that this angel revealed the location of a buried book made of golden plates, as well as other artifacts, including a breastplate and a set of interpreters composed of two seer stones set in a frame, which had been hidden in a hill near his home.[25] Smith said he attempted to remove the plates the next morning, but was unsuccessful because the angel returned and prevented him.[26] Smith reported that during the next four years, he made annual visits to the hill, but each time returned without the plates.[27]

Meanwhile, the Smith family faced financial hardship, due in part to the death of Smith's oldest brother Alvin, who had assumed a leadership role in the family.[28] Family members supplemented their meager farm income by hiring out for odd jobs and working as treasure seekers, a type of magical supernaturalism common during the period.[29] Smith was said to have an ability to locate lost items by looking into a seer stone, which he also used in treasure hunting, including several unsuccessful attempts to find buried treasure sponsored by a wealthy farmer in Chenango County, New York.[30] In 1826, Smith was brought before a Chenango County court for "glass-looking", or pretending to find lost treasure.[31] The result of the proceeding remains unclear as primary sources report various conflicting outcomes.[32]

While boarding at the Hale house in Harmony, Pennsylvania, Smith met and began courting Emma Hale. When Smith proposed marriage, Emma's father, Isaac Hale objected, primarily because he believed Smith had no means to support Emma besides money-digging.[33] Smith and Emma eloped and married on January 18, 1827, after which the couple began boarding with Smith's parents in Manchester. Later that year, when Smith promised to abandon treasure seeking, Hale offered to let the couple live on his property in Harmony and help Smith get started in business.[34]

Smith made his last visit to the hill on September 22, 1827, taking Emma with him.[35] This time, he said he successfully retrieved the plates. He said the angel commanded him not to show the plates to anyone else, but to translate them and publish their translation. Smith said the translation was a religious record of indigenous Americans.[36], and were engraved in an unknown language, called reformed Egyptian. He also told associates that he was capable of reading and translating them.[37]

Although Smith had left his treasure hunting company, his former associates believed he had doubled crossed them and taken the golden plates for himself, which they believed should be joint property.[38] After they ransacked places where they believed the plates could be hidden, Smith decided to leave Palmyra.[39]

In October 1827, Smith and his wife moved from Palmyra to Harmony (now Oakland), Pennsylvania, aided by a relatively prosperous neighbor, Martin Harris.[40] Living near his in-laws, Smith transcribed some characters that he said were engraved on the plates, and then dictated a translation to his wife.[41]

In February 1828, Martin Harris arrived to assist Smith by transcribing his dictation. Harris also took a sample of the characters to a few prominent scholars, including Charles Anthon. Harris said Anthon initially authenticated the characters and their translation, but then retracted his opinion after learning that Smith claimed to have received the plates from an angel.[42] Anthon denied Harris's account of the meeting, claiming instead that he had tried to convince Harris that he was the victim of a fraud. In any event, Harris returned to Harmony in April 1828, and continued as Smith's scribe.[43]

However, by June 1828, Harris began having doubts about the project, fueled in part by his wife's skepticism. Harris convinced Smith to let him take the existing 116 pages of manuscript to Palmyra to show a few family members, including his wife.[44] Harris lost the manuscript, of which there was no other copy. As punishment for losing the manuscript, Smith said that the angel returned and took away the plates, and revoked his ability to translate. During this period, Smith briefly attended Methodist meetings with his wife, until a cousin of hers objected to inclusion of a "practicing necromancer" on the Methodist class roll.[45]

Smith said that the angel returned the plates to him in September, 1828.[46] In April 1829, he met Oliver Cowdery, who replaced Harris as his scribe, and resumed dictation.[47] They worked full time on the manuscript between April and early June 1829, and then moved to Fayette, New York, where they continued to work at the home of Cowdery's friend, Peter Whitmer.[48] When the narrative described an institutional church and a requirement for baptism, Smith and Cowdery baptized each other.[49] Dictation was completed around July 1, 1829.[50]

Although Smith had previously refused to show the plates to anyone, he told Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer that they would be allowed to see them.[51] These men, known collectively as the Three Witnesses, signed a statement stating that they had been shown the golden plates by an angel, and that the voice of God had confirmed the truth of their translation. Later, a group of Eight Witnesses — composed of male members of the Whitmer and Smith families — issued a statement that they had been shown the golden plates by Smith.[52] According to Smith, the angel Moroni took back the plates once Smith finished using them.

The completed work, titled the Book of Mormon, was published in Palmyra on March 26, 1830, by printer E. B. Grandin. Soon after, on April 6, 1830, Smith and his followers formally organized the Church of Christ, and small branches were established in Palmyra, Fayette, and Colesville, New York.[53] The Book of Mormon brought Smith regional notoriety and opposition from those who remembered his money-digging and the 1826 Chenango County trial.[54] After Cowdery baptized several new church members, the Mormons received threats of mob violence; before Smith could confirm the newly baptized members, he was arrested and brought to trial as a disorderly person.[55] He was acquitted, but soon both he and Cowdery fled to Colesville to escape a gathering mob. In probable reference to this period of flight, Smith said that Peter, James, and John had appeared to him and had ordained him and Cowdery to a higher priesthood.[56]

Smith's authority was undermined when Oliver Cowdery, Hiram Page, and other church members also claimed to receive revelations.[57] In response, Smith dictated a revelation which clarified his office as a prophet and an apostle, and which declared that only he held the ability to give doctrine and scripture for the entire church.[58] Shortly after the conference, Smith dispatched Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, and others on a mission to proselytize Native Americans.[59] Cowdery was also assigned the task of locating the site of the New Jerusalem.[60]

On their way to Missouri, Cowdery's party passed through northeastern Ohio, where Sidney Rigdon and over a hundred followers of his variety of Campbellite Restorationism converted to Mormonism, more than doubling the size of the church.[61] Rigdon soon visited New York and quickly became Smith's primary assistant.[62] With growing opposition in New York, Smith gave a revelation stating that Kirtland was the eastern boundary of the New Jerusalem, and that his followers must gather there.[63]

When Smith moved to Kirtland, Ohio in January 1831, he encountered a religious culture that included enthusiastic demonstrations of spiritual gifts, including fits and trances, rolling on the ground, and speaking in tongues.[64] Smith brought the Kirtland congregation under his own authority and tamed these outbursts. Rigdon's followers had also been practicing a form of communalism, which Smith adopted, calling it the United Order.[65] Smith had promised church elders that in Kirtland they would receive an endowment of heavenly power, and at the June 1831 general conference, he introduced the greater authority of a High ("Melchizedek") Priesthood to the church hierarchy.[66]

Converts poured into Kirtland. By the summer of 1835, there were fifteen hundred to two thousand Mormons in the vicinity, many expecting Smith to lead them shortly to the Millennial kingdom.[67] Though his mission to the Indians had been a failure, Cowdery reported that he had found the site of the New Jerusalem in Jackson County, Missouri.[68] After Smith visited in July 1831, he agreed, pronouncing the frontier hamlet of Independence the "center place" of Zion.[69] Rigdon, however, disapproved, and for most of the 1830s the church remained divided between Ohio and Missouri.[70] Smith continued to live in Ohio, but visited Missouri again in early 1832 to prevent a rebellion of prominent church members who believed the church in Missouri was being neglected.[71] Smith's trip was also hastened by a mob of Ohio residents who were incensed over the United Order and Smith's political power; the mob beat Smith and Rigdon unconscious, tarred and feathered them, and left them for dead.[72]

In Jackson County, existing Missouri residents resented the Mormon newcomers for both political and religious reasons.[73] Tension increased until July 1833, when non-Mormons forcibly evicted the Mormons and destroyed their property. Smith advised them to bear the violence patiently until after they were attacked multiple times, after which they could fight back.[74] After armed bands exchanged fire, killing one Mormon and two non-Mormons, the old settlers brutally expelled the Mormons from the county.[75]

Smith ended the communitarian experiment and changed the name of the church to the "Church of Latter Day Saints," before leading a small paramilitary expedition called Zion's Camp, to aid the Missouri Mormons.[76] As a military endeavor, the expedition was a failure; the men were outnumbered and suffered from dissension and a cholera outbreak.[77] Nevertheless, Zion's Camp transformed Mormon leadership, and many future church leaders came from among the participants.[78]

After the Camp returned, Smith drew heavily from its participants to establish five governing bodies in the church, all originally of equal authority to check one another. Among these five groups was a quorum of twelve apostles.[79] Smith gave a revelation saying that to redeem Zion, his followers would have to receive an endowment in the Kirtland Temple,[80] and in March 1836, at the temple's dedication, many participants in the promised endowment saw visions of angels, spoke in tongues, and prophesied.[81]

In late 1837, a series of internal disputes led to the collapse of the Kirtland Mormon community.[82] Smith was blamed for having promoted a church-sponsored bank that failed. He was also accused of engaging in a sexual relationship with his serving girl, Fanny Alger.[83] Building the temple had left the church deeply in debt, and Smith was hounded by creditors.[84] Having heard of a large sum of money supposedly hidden in Salem, Massachusetts, Smith traveled there and received a revelation that God had "much treasure in this city".[85] After a month, however, he returned to Kirtland empty-handed.[86]

In January 1837, Smith and other church leaders created a joint stock company, called the Kirtland Safety Society, to act as a quasi-bank; the company issued bank notes capitalized in part by real estate.[87] Smith encouraged the Latter Day Saints to buy the notes, and he invested heavily in them himself, but the bank failed within a month.[88] As a result, the Latter Day Saints in Kirtland suffered intense pressure from debt collectors and severe price volatility. Smith was held responsible for the failure, and there were widespread defections from the church, including many of Smith's closest advisers.[89] After a warrant was issued for Smith's arrest on a charge of banking fraud, Smith and Rigdon fled Kirtland for Missouri in January 1838.[90]

By 1838, Smith had abandoned plans to redeem Zion in Jackson County, and after Smith and Rigdon arrived in Missouri, the town of Far West became the new "Zion".[91] In Missouri, the church also took the name "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", and construction began on a new temple.[92] In the weeks and months after Smith and Rigdon arrived at Far West, thousands of Latter Day Saints followed them from Kirtland.[93] Smith encouraged the settlement of land outside Caldwell County, instituting a settlement in Adam-ondi-Ahman, in Daviess County.

During this time, a church council expelled many of the oldest and most prominent leaders of the church, including John Whitmer, David Whitmer, W. W. Phelps, and Oliver Cowdery.[94] Smith explicitly approved of the expulsion of these men, who were known collectively as the "dissenters".[95]

Political and religious differences between old Missourians and newly-arriving Mormon settlers provoked tensions between the two groups, much as they had years earlier in Jackson County. By this time, Smith's experiences with mob violence led him to believe that his faith's survival required greater militancy against anti-Mormons.[96] Around June 1838, recent convert Sampson Avard formed a covert organization called the Danites to intimidate Mormon dissenters and oppose anti-Mormon militia units.[97] Though it is unclear how much Smith knew of the Danites' activities, he clearly approved of those of which he did know.[98] After Rigdon delivered a sermon that implied dissenters had no place in the Mormon community, the Danites forcibly expelled them from the county.[99]

In a speech given at the town's Fourth of July celebration, Rigdon declared that Mormons would no longer tolerate persecution by the Missourians and spoke of a "war of extermination" if Mormons were attacked.[100] Smith implicitly endorsed this speech,[101] and many non-Mormons understood it to be a thinly-veiled threat. They unleashed a flood of anti-Mormon rhetoric in newspapers and in stump speeches given during the 1838 election campaign.[102]

On August 6, 1838, non-Mormons in Gallatin tried to prevent Mormons from voting,[103] and the election-day scuffles initiated the 1838 Mormon War. Non-Mormon vigilantes raided and burned Mormon farms, while Danites and other Mormons pillaged non-Mormon towns.[104] In the Battle of Crooked River, a group of Mormons attacked the Missouri state militia, mistakenly believing them to be anti-Mormon vigilantes. Governor Lilburn Boggs then ordered that the Mormons be "exterminated or driven from the state".[105] On October 30, a party of Missourians surprised and killed seventeen Mormons in the Haun's Mill massacre.[106]

The following day, the Latter Day Saints surrendered to 2,500 state troops and agreed to forfeit their property and leave the state.[107] Smith was immediately brought before a military court, accused of treason, and sentenced to be executed the next morning; Alexander Doniphan, who was Smith's former attorney and a brigadier general in the Missouri militia, refused to carry out the order.[108] Smith was then sent to a state court for a preliminary hearing, where several of his former allies testified against him.[109] Smith and five others, including Rigdon, were charged with "overt acts of treason", and transferred to the jail at Liberty, Missouri, to await trial.[110]

Smith's months in prison with an ill and whining Rigdon strained their relationship. Meanwhile Brigham Young, the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, rose to prominence when he organized the move of about 14,000 Mormon refugees to Illinois and eastern Iowa.[111]

Smith bore his imprisonment stoically. Understanding that he was effectively on trial before his own people, many of whom considered him a fallen prophet, he wrote a personal defense and an apology for the activities of the Danites. "The keys of the kingdom," he wrote, "have not been taken away from us".[112] Though he directed his followers to collect and publish their stories of persecution, he also urged them to moderate their antagonism toward non-Mormons.[113] On April 6, 1839, after a grand jury hearing in Davis County, Smith and his companions escaped custody, almost certainly with the connivance of the sheriff and guards.[114]

Many American newspapers criticized Missouri for the Haun's Mill massacre and the state's expulsion of the Latter Day Saints. Illinois accepted Mormon refugees who gathered along the banks of the Mississippi River,[115] where Smith purchased high-priced, swampy woodland in the hamlet of Commerce.[116] Smith also attempted to portray the Latter Day Saints as an oppressed minority, and unsuccessfully petitioned the federal government for help in obtaining reparations.[117] During the summer of 1839, while Latter Day Saints in Nauvoo suffered from a malaria epidemic, Smith sent Brigham Young and other apostles to missions in Europe, where they made numerous converts, many of them poor factory workers.[118]

Smith also attracted a few wealthy and influential converts, including John C. Bennett, the Illinois quartermaster general.[119] Bennett used his connections in the Illinois legislature to obtain an unusually liberal charter for the new city, which Smith named "Nauvoo" (Hebrew נָאווּ, meaning "to be beautiful").[120] The charter granted the city virtual autonomy, authorized a university, and granted Nauvoo habeas corpus power—which allowed Smith to fend off extradition to Missouri.[121] Though Mormon authorities controlled Nauvoo's civil government, the city promised an unusually liberal guarantee of religious freedom.[122] The charter also authorized the Nauvoo Legion, an autonomous militia whose actions were limited only by state and federal constitutions. "Lieutenant General" Smith and "Major General" Bennett became its commanders, thereby controlling by far the largest body of armed men in Illinois.[123] Smith made Bennett Assistant President of the church, and Bennett was elected Nauvoo's first mayor.[124]

In 1841, Smith began revealing the doctrine of plural marriage to a few of his closest male associates, including Bennett, who used it as an excuse to seduce numerous women wed and unwed.[125] When embarrassing rumors of "spiritual wifery" got abroad, Smith forced Bennett's resignation as Nauvoo mayor. In retaliation, Bennett left Smith's following and wrote "lurid exposÃ©s of life in Nauvoo".[126]

The early Nauvoo years were a period of doctrinal innovation. Smith introduced baptism for the dead in 1840, and in 1841, construction began on the Nauvoo Temple as a place for recovering lost ancient knowledge.[127] An 1841 revelation promised the restoration of the "fulness of the priesthood"; and in May 1842, Smith inaugurated a revised endowment or "first anointing".[128] The endowment resembled rites of freemasonry that Smith had observed two months earlier when he had been initiated into the Nauvoo Masonic lodge.[129] At first, the endowment was open only to men, who were initiated into a special group called the Anointed Quorum. For women, Smith introduced the Relief Society, a service club and sorority within which Smith predicted women would receive "the keys of the kingdom".[130] Smith also elaborated on his plan for a millennial kingdom. No longer envisioning the building of Zion in Nauvoo, Smith viewed Zion as encompassing all of North and South America, with Mormon settlements being "stakes" of Zion's metaphorical tent.[131] Zion also became less a refuge from an impending tribulation than a great building project.[132] In the summer of 1842, Smith revealed a plan to establish the millennial Kingdom of God, which would eventually establish theocratic rule over the whole earth.[133]

By mid-1842, popular opinion had turned against the Mormons. After an unknown assailant shot and wounded Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs in May 1842, anti-Mormons circulated rumors that Smith's bodyguard, Porter Rockwell, was the shooter.[134] Though the evidence was circumstantial, Boggs ordered Smith's extradition. Certain he would be killed if he ever returned to Missouri, Smith went into hiding twice during the next five months, before the U.S. district attorney for Illinois argued that Smith's extradition to Missouri would be unconstitutional.[135] (Rockwell was later tried and acquitted.) In June 1843, enemies of Smith convinced a reluctant Illinois Governor Thomas Ford to extradite Smith to Missouri on an old charge of treason. Two law officers arrested Smith, but were intercepted by a party of Mormons before they could reach Missouri. Smith was then released on a writ of habeas corpus from the Nauvoo municipal court.[136] While this ended the Missourians' attempts at extradition, it caused significant political fallout in Illinois.[137]

In December 1843, Smith petitioned Congress to make Nauvoo an independent territory with the right to call out federal troops in its defense.[138] Smith then wrote to the leading presidential candidates and asked them what they would do to protect the Mormons. After receiving noncommittal or negative responses, Smith announced his own independent candidacy for President of the United States, suspended regular proselytizing, and sent out the Quorum of the Twelve and hundreds of other political missionaries.[139] In March 1844 — following a dispute with a federal bureaucrat — Smith organized the secret Council of Fifty. Smith said the Council had authority to decide which national or state laws Mormons should obey.[140] The Council was also to select a site for a large Mormon settlement in Texas, California, or Oregon, where Mormons could live under theocratic law beyond other governmental control.[141]

By early 1844, a rift developed between Smith and a half dozen of his closest associates.[142] Most notably, William Law, Smith's trusted counselor, and Robert Foster, a general of the Nauvoo Legion, disagreed with Smith about how to manage Nauvoo's economy.[143] Both also said that Smith had proposed marriage to their wives.[144] Believing the dissidents were plotting against his life, Smith excommunicated them on April 18, 1844.[145] These dissidents formed a competing church and the following month, at Carthage, the county seat, they procured indictments against Smith for perjury and polygamy.[146]

On June 7, the dissidents published the first (and only) issue of the Nauvoo Expositor, calling for reform within the church and appealing to the political views of the county's anti-Mormons.[147] The paper decried Smith's new "doctrines of many Gods", alluded to Smith's theocratic aspirations, and called for a repeal of the Nauvoo city charter.[148] It also attacked Smith's practice of polygamy, implying that Smith was using religion as a pretext to draw unassuming women to Nauvoo in order to seduce and marry them.[149]

Fearing the newspaper would bring the countryside down on the Mormons, the Nauvoo city council declared the Expositor a public nuisance and ordered the Nauvoo Legion to destroy the press.[150] Smith, who feared another mob attack, supported the action, not realizing that destroying a newspaper was more likely to incite an attack than any libel.[151]

Destruction of the newspaper provoked a strident call to arms from Thomas C. Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal and longtime critic of Smith.[153] Fearing an uprising, Smith mobilized the Nauvoo Legion on June 18 and declared martial law. Officials in Carthage responded by mobilizing their small detachment of the state militia, and Governor Thomas Ford appeared, threatening to raise a larger militia unless Smith and the Nauvoo city council surrendered themselves.[154] Smith initially fled across the Mississippi River, but shortly returned and surrendered to Ford.[155] On June 23, Smith and his brother Hyrum rode to Carthage to stand trial for inciting a riot.[156] Once the Smiths were in custody, the charges were increased to treason.[157]

On June 27, 1844, an armed mob with blackened faces stormed Carthage Jail where Joseph and Hyrum were being held. Hyrum, who was trying to secure the door, was killed instantly with a shot to the face. Smith fired a pepper-box pistol that a friend had lent him,[158] then sprang for the window.[159] He was shot multiple times before falling out the window, crying, "Oh Lord my God!" He died shortly after hitting the ground, but was shot several more times before the mob dispersed.[160] Five men were later tried for Smith's murder, but were all acquitted.[161] Smith was buried in Nauvoo, and is interred there at the Smith Family Cemetery.

After his death, non-Mormon newspapers were almost unanimous in portraying Smith as a religious fanatic.[162] Conversely, within Mormonism, Smith was memorialized first and foremost as a prophet, martyred to seal the testimony of his faith.[163]

Smith attracted thousands of devoted followers before his death in 1844, and millions in the century that followed.[164] Among Mormons, he is regarded as a prophet on par with Moses and Elijah.[165] In a 2015 compilation of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time, Smithsonian magazine ranked Smith first in the category of religious figures.[166]

Mormons and ex-Mormons have produced a large amount of scholarly work about Smith, and to a large extent the result has been two discordant pictures of very different people: a man of God on the one hand, and on the other, a fraud preying on the ignorance of his followers.[167] Believers tend to focus on his achievements and religious teachings, deemphasizing his personal defects, while detractors focus on his mistakes, legal troubles, and controversial doctrines. During the first half of the 20th century, some writers suggested that Smith might have suffered from epileptic seizures or from psychological disorders such as paranoid delusions or manic-depressive illness that might explain his visions and revelations.[168] Many modern biographers disagree with these ideas.[169] More nuanced interpretations include viewing Smith as: a prophet who had normal human weaknesses; a "pious fraud" who believed he was called of God to preach repentance and felt justified inventing visions in order to convert people;[170] or a gifted "mythmaker" who was the product of his Yankee environment.[171] Biographers, Mormon and non-Mormon alike, agree that Smith was one of the most influential, charismatic, and innovative figures in American religious history.[172]

Memorials to Smith include the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Joseph Smith Building on the campus of Brigham Young University, and a granite obelisk marking his birth place.

Smith's death resulted in a succession crisis.[173] Smith had proposed several ways to choose his successor, but had never clarified his preference.[174] Smith's brother Hyrum, had he survived, would have had the strongest claim, followed by Smith's brother Samuel, who died mysteriously a month after his brothers.[175] Another brother, William, was unable to attract a sufficient following.[176] Smith's sons Joseph III and David also had claims, but Joseph III was too young and David was yet unborn.[177] The Council of Fifty had a theoretical claim to succession, but it was a secret organization.[178] Some of Smith's chosen successors, such as Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer, had left the church.[179]

The two strongest succession candidates were Brigham Young, senior member and president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Sidney Rigdon, the senior member of the First Presidency. In a church-wide conference on August 8, most of the Latter Day Saints elected Young, who led them to the Utah Territory as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).[180] Membership in Young's denomination surpassed 14 million members in 2010.[181] Smaller groups followed Sidney Rigdon and James J. Strang, who had based his claim on an allegedly-forged letter of appointment.[182] Others followed Lyman Wight and Alpheus Cutler.[183] Many members of these smaller groups, including most of Smith's family, eventually coalesced in 1860 under the leadership of Joseph Smith III and formed what was known for more than a century as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now Community of Christ), which now has about 250,000 members. As of 2013[update], members of the denominations originating from Smith's teachings number approximately 15 million.[184]

The first of Smith's wives, Emma Hale, gave birth to nine children during their marriage, five of whom died before the age of two. The eldest, Alvin (born in 1828), died within hours of birth, as did twins Thaddeus and Louisa (born in 1831). When the twins died, the Smiths adopted another set of twins, Julia and Joseph, whose mother had recently died in childbirth; Joseph died of measles in 1832.[185] In 1841, Don Carlos, who had been born a year earlier, died of malaria. In 1842, Emma gave birth to a stillborn son. Joseph and Emma had four sons who lived to maturity: Joseph Smith III, Frederick Granger Williams Smith, Alexander Hale Smith, and David Hyrum Smith.[186] Some historians have speculated—based on journal entries and family stories—that Smith may have fathered children with his plural wives. However, all DNA testing of potential Smith descendants from wives other than Emma has been negative.[187]

Throughout her life, Emma Smith frequently denied that her husband had ever taken additional wives.[188] Emma said that the very first time she ever became aware of a polygamy revelation being attributed to Smith by Mormons was when she read about it in Orson Pratt's periodical The Seer in 1853.[189] Emma campaigned publicly against polygamy, and was the main signatory of a petition in 1842, with a thousand female signatures, denying that Smith was connected with polygamy. As president of the Ladies' Relief Society, Emma authorized publishing a certificate in the same year denouncing polygamy, and denying her husband as its creator or participant.[190] Even on her deathbed, Emma denied Joseph's involvement with polygamy, stating, "No such thing as polygamy, or spiritual wifery, was taught, publicly or privately, before my husband's death, that I have now, or ever had any knowledge ofÂ ... He had no other wife but me; nor did he to my knowledge ever have".[191]

After Smith's death, Emma Smith quickly became alienated from Brigham Young and the church leadership.[192] Young, whom Emma feared and despised, was suspicious of her desire to preserve the family's assets from inclusion with those of the church, and thought she would be even more troublesome because she openly opposed plural marriage.[193] When most Latter Day Saints moved west, she stayed in Nauvoo, married a non-Mormon, Major Lewis C. Bidamon,[194] and withdrew from religion until 1860, when she affiliated with the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, first headed by her son, Joseph Smith III. Emma never denied Smith's prophetic gift or repudiated her belief in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.[195]

According to the American historian and Mormonism expert Richard Bushman, the "signal feature" of Smith's life was "his sense of being guided by revelation". Instead of presenting ideas with logical arguments, Smith dictated authoritative revelations and let people decide whether to believe.[196] Smith's teachings came primarily through his revelations, which read like scripture: oracular and open to interpretation. Smith and his followers viewed his revelations as being above teachings or opinions, and Smith's actions seemed to indicate that he believed in his revelations as much as his most loyal followers.[197]

Smith's first recorded revelation was a rebuke from God for having let Martin Harris lose 116 pages of Book of Mormon manuscript, chastising him for "fearing man more than God".[198] The revelation was given in the voice of God rather than as a declaration mediated through Smith; and subsequent revelations assumed a similar authoritative style, often opening with words such as "Hearken O ye people which profess my name, saith the Lord your God."[199]

The Book of Mormon has been called the longest and most complex of Smith's revelations.[200] It is organized as a compilation of smaller books, each named after its main named narrator or a prominent leader. It tells the story of the rise and fall of a religious civilization beginning around 600 BC and ending in 421 AD.[201] The story begins with a family that leaves Jerusalem, just before the Babylonian captivity.[202] They eventually construct a ship and sail to a "promised land" in the Western Hemisphere.[203] There, they are divided into two factions: Nephites and Lamanites. The Nephites become a righteous people who build a temple and live the law of Moses, though their prophets teach a Christian gospel. The book explains itself to be largely the work of Mormon, a Nephite prophet and military figure. The book closes when Mormon's son, Moroni, finishes engraving and buries the records written on the golden plates.[204]

Christian themes permeate the work; for instance, Nephite prophets in the Book of Mormon teach of Christ's coming, and talk of the star that will appear at his birth.[205] After the crucifixion and resurrection in Jerusalem, Jesus appears in the Americas, repeats the Sermon on the Mount, blesses children, and appoints twelve disciples. The book ends with Moroni's exhortation to "come unto Christ".[206]

Early Mormons understood the Book of Mormon to be a religious history of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Smith's followers view it as a companion to the Bible and an additional witness of Christ, akin to a large apocryphal work.[207] Modern historian Fawn Brodie has called the Book of Mormon a response to pressing cultural and environmental issues of Smith's times, saying that Smith composed the Book of Mormon drawing from scraps of information available to him. Dan Vogel, another historian, says that the work is autobiographical in nature.[208]

Smith never said how he produced the Book of Mormon, saying only that he translated by the power of God and implying that he had transcribed the words.[209] The Book of Mormon itself states only that its text will "come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof".[210] As such, considerable disagreement about the actual method used exists. For at least some of the earliest dictation, Smith is said to have used the "Urim and Thummim", a pair of seer stones he said were buried with the plates.[211] Later, however, he is said to have used a chocolate-colored stone he had found in 1822 that he had used previously for treasure hunting.[212] Joseph Knight said that Smith saw the words of the translation while he gazed at the stone or stones in the bottom of his hat, excluding all light, a process similar to divining the location of treasure.[213] Sometimes, Smith concealed the process by raising a curtain or dictating from another room, while at other times he dictated in full view of witnesses while the plates lay covered on the table.[214] After completing the translation, Smith gave the brown stone to Cowdery, but continued to receive revelations using another stone until about 1833 when he said he no longer needed it.[215]

Although the Book of Mormon drew many converts to the church, Fawn Brodie argued that the "book lives today because of the prophet, not he because of the book."[216] Smith had assumed a role as prophet, seer, and apostle of Jesus Christ, and by early 1831, he was introducing himself as "Joseph the Prophet".[217] The language of authority in Smith's revelations was appealing to converts, and the revelations were given with the confidence of an Old Testament prophet.[218]

Smith said that in June 1830, he received a "revelation of Moses" in which Moses saw "the world and the ends thereof" and asked God questions about the purpose of creation and man's relationship to God. This revelation initiated a revision of the Bible on which Smith worked sporadically until 1833 and which remained unpublished at his death.[219] Smith said that the Bible had been corrupted through the ages, and that his revision worked to restore the original intent; it added long passages rewritten "according to his inspiration".[220] While many changes involved straightening out seeming contradictions or making small clarifications, other changes added large "lost" portions to the text.[221] For instance, Smith's revision nearly tripled the length of the first five chapters of Genesis in what would become the Book of Moses.[222]

The Book of Moses begins with Moses' asking God about the purpose of creation. Moses is told in this account that God made the earth and heavens to bring humans to eternal life. The book also provides an enlarged account of the Genesis creation narrative and expands the story of Enoch, the ancestor of Noah. In the narrative, Enoch speaks with God, receives a prophetic calling, and eventually builds a city of Zion so righteous that it was taken to heaven.[223] The book also elaborates and expands upon foreshadowing the coming of Christ, in effect Christianizing the Old Testament.[224]

In 1835, Smith encouraged some Latter Day Saints in Kirtland to purchase rolls of ancient Egyptian papyri from a traveling exhibitor. Over the next several years, Smith worked to produce what he reported was a translation of one of these rolls, which was published in 1842 as the Book of Abraham.[225] The Book of Abraham speaks of the founding of the Abrahamic nation, astronomy, cosmology, lineage and priesthood, and gives another account of the creation story.[226] The papyri from which Smith dictated the Book of Abraham were thought to have been lost in the Great Chicago Fire. However, several fragments were rediscovered in the 1960s, were translated by Egyptologists, and were determined to be part of the Book of the Dead with no connection to Abraham.[227]

According to Parley P. Pratt, Smith dictated revelations orally, and they were recorded by a scribe without revisions or corrections.[229] Revelations were immediately copied, and then circulated among church members. Smith's revelations often came in response to specific questions. He described the revelatory process as having "pure Intelligence" flowing into him. Smith, however, never viewed the wording to be infallible. The revelations were not God's words verbatim, but "couched in language suitable to Joseph's time".[230] In 1833, Smith edited and expanded many of the previous revelations, publishing them as the Book of Commandments, which later became part of the Doctrine and Covenants.[231]

Smith gave varying types of revelations. Some were temporal, while others were spiritual or doctrinal. Some were received for a specific individual, while others were directed at the whole church. An 1831 revelation called "The Law" contained: directions for missionary work; rules for organizing society in Zion; a reiteration of the Ten Commandments; an injunction to "administer to the poor and needy"; and an outline for the law of consecration.[232] An 1832 revelation called "The Vision" added to the fundamentals of sin and atonement, and introduced doctrines of life after salvation,exaltation, and a heaven with degrees of glory.[233] Another 1832 revelation "on Priesthood" was the first to explain priesthood doctrine.[234] Three months later, Smith gave a lengthy revelation called the "Olive Leaf" containing themes of cosmology and eschatology, and discussing subjects such as light, truth, intelligence, and sanctification; a related revelation given in 1833 put Christ at the center of salvation.[235]

Also in 1833, at a time of temperance agitation, Smith delivered a revelation called the "Word of Wisdom," which counseled a diet of wholesome herbs, fruits, grains, a sparing use of meat. It also recommended that Latter Day Saints avoid "strong" alcoholic drinks, tobacco, and "hot drinks" (later interpreted to mean tea and coffee).[236] The Word of Wisdom was not originally framed as a commandment, but a recommendation. As such, Smith and other Latter Day Saints did not strictly follow this counsel, though it later became a requirement in the LDS Church.[237] In 1835, Smith gave the "great revelation" that organized the priesthood into quorums and councils, and functioned as a complex blueprint for church structure.[238] Smith's last revelation, on the "New and Everlasting Covenant", was recorded in 1843, and dealt with the theology of family, the doctrine of sealing, and plural marriage.[239]

Before 1832, most of Smith's revelations dealt with establishing the church, gathering his followers, and building the City of Zion. Later revelations dealt primarily with the priesthood, endowment, and exaltation.[240] The pace of formal revelations slowed during the autumn of 1833, and again after the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.[241] Smith moved away from formal written revelations spoken in God's voice, and instead taught more in sermons, conversations, and letters.[242] For instance, the doctrines of baptism for the dead and the nature of God were introduced in sermons, and one of Smith's most famed statements about there being "no such thing as immaterial matter" was recorded from a casual conversation with a Methodist preacher.[243]

Smith taught that all existence was material, including a world of "spirit matter" so fine that it was invisible to all but the purest mortal eyes.[244] Matter, in Smith's view, could neither be created nor destroyed; the creation involved only the reorganization of existing matter. Like matter, Smith saw "intelligence" as co-eternal with God, and taught that human spirits had been drawn from a pre-existent pool of eternal intelligences.[245] Nevertheless, spirits could not experience a "fullness of joy" unless joined with corporeal bodies, according to Smith. The work and glory of God, then, was to create worlds across the cosmos where inferior intelligences could be embodied.[246]

Though Smith initially viewed God the Father as a spirit,[247] he eventually began teaching that God was an advanced and glorified man,[248] embodied within time and space.[249] By the end of his life, Smith was teaching that both God the Father and Jesus were distinct beings with physical bodies, but the Holy Spirit was a "personage of Spirit".[250] Through the gradual acquisition of knowledge, according to Smith, those who received exaltation could eventually become like God.[251] These teachings implied a vast hierarchy of gods, with God himself having a father.[252] In Smith's cosmology, those who became gods would reign, unified in purpose and will, leading spirits of lesser capacity to share immortality and eternal life.[253]

In Smith's view, the opportunity to achieve exaltation extended to all humanity; those who died with no opportunity to accept saving ordinances could achieve exaltation by accepting them in the afterlife through ordinances performed on their behalf.[254] Smith said that children who died in their innocence would be guaranteed to rise at the resurrection and receive exaltation. Apart from those who committed the eternal sin, Smith taught that even the wicked and disbelieving would achieve a degree of glory in the afterlife.[255]

Smith's teachings were rooted in dispensational restorationism.[256] He taught that the Church of Christ restored through him was a latter-day restoration of the early Christian faith, which had been lost in the Great Apostasy.[257] At first, Smith's church had little sense of hierarchy; his religious authority was derived from visions and revelations.[258] Though Smith did not claim exclusive prophethood, an early revelation designated him as the only prophet allowed to issue commandments "as Moses".[259] This religious authority encompassed economic and political as well as spiritual matters. For instance, in the early 1830s, he temporarily instituted a form of religious communism, called the United Order, that required Latter Day Saints to give all their property to the church, which was divided among the faithful.[260] He also envisioned that the theocratic institutions he established would have a role in the worldwide political organization of the Millennium.[261]

By the mid-1830s, Smith began teaching a hierarchy of three priesthoodsâ€”the Melchizedek, the Aaronic, and the Patriarchal.[262] Each priesthood was a continuation of biblical priesthoods through patrilineal succession or ordination by biblical figures appearing in visions.[263] Upon introducing the Melchizedek or "High" Priesthood in 1831, Smith taught that its recipients would be "endowed with power from on high", thus fulfilling a need for a greater holiness and an authority commensurate with the New Testament apostles.[264] This doctrine of endowment evolved through the 1830s, until in 1842, the Nauvoo endowment included an elaborate ceremony containing elements similar to Freemasonry and the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah.[265] The endowment was extended to women in 1843, though Smith never clarified whether women could be ordained to priesthood offices.[266]

Smith taught that the High Priesthood's endowment of heavenly power included the sealing powers of Elijah, allowing High Priests to effect binding consequences in the afterlife.[267] For example, this power would enable proxy baptisms for the dead and priesthood marriages that would be effective into the afterlife.[268] Elijah's sealing powers also enabled the second anointing, or "fulness [sic] of the priesthood", which, according to Smith, sealed married couples to their exaltation.[269]

During the early 1840s, Smith unfolded a theology of family relations called the "New and Everlasting Covenant" that superseded all earthly bonds.[270] He taught that outside the Covenant, marriages were simply matters of contract, and that in the afterlife individuals married outside the Covenant or not married would be limited in their progression.[271] To fully enter the Covenant, a man and woman must participate in a "first anointing", a "sealing" ceremony, and a "second anointing" (also called "sealing by the Holy Spirit of Promise").[272] When fully sealed into the Covenant, Smith said that no sin nor blasphemy (other than the eternal sin) could keep them from their exaltation in the afterlife.[273] According to Smith, only one person on earth at a time—in this case, Smith—could possess this power of sealing.[274]

Smith taught that the highest level of exaltation could be achieved through "plural marriage" (polygamy), which was the ultimate manifestation of this New and Everlasting Covenant.[275] Plural marriage, according to Smith, allowed an individual to transcend the angelic state and become a god, accelerating the expansion of one's heavenly kingdom.[276]

By some accounts, Smith had been teaching a polygamy doctrine as early as 1831, and there is unconfirmed evidence that Smith was a polygamist by 1835.[277][278] Although the church had publicly repudiated polygamy, in 1837 there was a rift between Smith and Oliver Cowdery over the issue.[279] Cowdery suspected Smith had engaged in a relationship with his serving girl, Fanny Alger.[280] Smith never denied a relationship, but insisted it was not adulterous, presumably because he had taken Alger as a plural wife.[281]

In April 1841, Smith wed Louisa Beaman. During the next two-and-a-half years he married or was sealed to about 30 additional women,[282] ten of whom were already married to other men. Some of these polyandrous marriages were done with the consent of the first husbands, and some plural marriages may have been considered "eternity-only" sealings; Quinn (1994); Compton (1997); Bushman (2005, pp. 437–9); Van Wagoner (1992); Newell & Avery (1994); Hales (2012) (Hales discusses the historical records and context of 5-11 such sealings, which indicate they were eternity-only unions.); Quinn (2012, p. 5) (Quinn acknowledged in 2012 that a recently discovered historical record regarding Ruth Sayers indicates that the union applied "only to the eternities after mortal life," disproving his previously-held "decades-long" assumption that excluded eternity-only sealings.).</ref> Ten of Smith's plural wives were between the ages of fourteen and twenty; others were over fifty.[283] The practice of polygamy was kept secret from both non-Mormons and most members of the church during Smith's lifetime.[284]

Polygamy caused a breach between Smith and his first wife, Emma.[285] Although Emma knew of some of her husband's marriages, she almost certainly did not know the extent of his polygamous activities.[286] In 1843, Emma temporarily accepted Smith's marriage to four women boarded in the Smith household, but soon regretted her decision and demanded the other wives leave.[287] In July 1843, Smith dictated a revelation directing Emma to accept plural marriage,[288] but the two were not reconciled until September 1843, after Emma began participating in temple ceremonies.[289]

While campaigning for President of the United States in 1844, Smith had opportunity to take political positions on issues of the day. Smith considered the U.S. Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights, to be inspired by God and "the [Latter Day] Saints' best and perhaps only defense.".[290] He believed a strong central government was crucial to the nation's well-being and thought democracy better than tyrannyâ€”although he also taught that a theocratic monarchy was the ideal form of government.[291] In foreign affairs, Smith was an expansionist, though he viewed "expansionism as brotherhood".[292]

Smith favored a strong central bank and high tariffs to protect American business and agriculture. He disfavored imprisonment of convicts except for murder, preferring efforts to reform criminals through labor; he also opposed courts-martial for military deserters. He supported capital punishment but opposed hanging, preferring execution by firing squad or beheading.[293]

On the issue of slavery, Smith took different positions.[294] Initially he opposed it, but during the mid-1830s when the Mormons were settling in Missouri (a slave state), Smith cautiously justified slavery in a strongly anti-abolitionist essay.[295] Then in the early 1840s, after Mormons had been expelled from Missouri, he once again opposed slavery. During his presidential campaign of 1844, he proposed ending slavery by 1850 and compensating slaveholders for their loss.[296] Smith said that blacks were not inherently inferior to whites, and he welcomed slaves into the church.[297] However, he opposed baptizing them without permission of their masters, and he opposed interracial marriage.[298]

Smith declared that he would be one of the instruments in fulfilling Nebuchadnezzar's statue vision in the Book of Daniel: that secular government would be destroyed without "sword or gun", and would be replaced with a "theodemocratic" Kingdom of God.[299] Smith taught that this kingdom would be governed by theocratic principles, but that it would also be multidenominational and democratic, so long as the people chose wisely.[300]