An Effort to Avert Calamity.--Joseph Smith's last public act of a political character was an effort to save his country from the awful calamity that he saw impending. To some it may appear strange, even inconsistent, that a prophet, after making a prediction, would try to prevent it from coming to pass. But it is only a seeming inconsistency. It should be remembered that divine promises and prophecies are conditional. There is always an alternative, expressed or implied, hinging upon a change of attitude or conduct on the part of the person or persons toward whom the prophecy is directed. Deem it not incongruous, therefore, that this Prophet, after predicting the Civil War, should endeavor to open a way of escape from the evils he had foreseen and foretold. In January, 1844, only five months before his martyrdom, Joseph Smith became a candidate for President of the United States. One of the planks of his political platform was a proposition to free the slaves of the South--not by confiscation, thereby despoiling their owners, but by purchase, making their freedom a gift from the General Government; the funds necessary for the purpose to be realized from the sale of public lands. This just and humane proposition, repeated eleven years later by Ralph Waldo Emerson, [5] and favored also by Abraham Lincoln, was ignored; and it cost the Nation a million of lives and billions of treasure to despise the counsel of a prophet of God, and adopt instead what the hate-blinded politicians of that period deemed "a more excellent way." [6] How Stephen A. Douglas Fulfilled Prophecy.--Closely connected with events immediately preceding the Civil War, is another prophecy of Joseph Smith's, uttered May 18, 1843, and recorded at the time in the journal of his private secretary. On the date given, the Prophet dined with Stephen A. Douglas, at the home of Sheriff Backenstos, in Carthage, Illinois, the same town where the brothers Joseph and Hyrum afterwards met their tragic death. Judge Douglas was holding court there. The principal topic of conversation after dinner was the persecution of the Latter-day Saints in Missouri, not only the Jackson County affair of 1833, but the more sanguinary tragedy of 1838-1839, culminating in the mid-winter expulsion of the entire Church--then numbering twelve to fifteen thousand members--and its establishment in the adjoining State of Illinois. An account of these events, at the Judge's request, the "Mormon" leader gave. His narrative included a recital of the ineffectual attempts made by him and his people to obtain from the Federal government a redress of grievances.