Born in the lowest ranks of poverty, without book-learning, and with the homeliest of all human names, he had made {6} himself at the age of thirty-nine a power upon the earth. Of the multitudinous family of Smith, none had so won human hearts and shaped human lives as this Joseph. His influence, whether for good or evil, is potent to-day, and the end is not yet. If the reader does not know what to make of Joseph Smith, I cannot help him out of the difficulty; I myself stand helpless before the puzzle. (Josiah Quincy, F. of the P.) I am a rough stone. The sound of the hammer and chisel were never heard on me until the Lord took me in hand. I desire the learning and wisdom of heaven alone. (Joseph Smith.) Some of His Views on Government. The Constitution of the United States is a glorious standard; it is a heavenly banner; it is like a great tree under whose branches men from all climes can be shielded from the burning rays of an inclement sun: and Mormon as well as Presbyterian, and every other denomination have equal rights to partake of the fruits of this great tree of our national Liberty. Petition, also, ye goodly inhabitants of the slave States, your legislators to abolish slavery by the year 1850, or now, and save the abolitionist from reproach and ruin, infamy and shame. Pray Congress to pay every man a reasonable price for his slaves out of the surplus revenue arising from the sale of public lands. Break off the shackles from the poor black man and hire him to labor like other human beings: "For an hour of virtuous Liberty on earth is worth a whole eternity of bondage." For the accommodation of the people in every state and territory let Congress show their wisdom by granting a national bank, with branches in each state and territory, where the capital stock shall be held by the nation for the mother bank and by the states and territories for the branches, and {7} whose officers and directors shall be elected by the people. The net gains of the mother bank should be applied to the national revenue and that of the branches to the States' and Territories' revenues. When the people petition for a National Bank, I would use my best endeavors to have their prayers answered, and establish one on national principles to save taxes, and make them the controllers of its ways and means. Let the people of the whole Union, whenever they find a promise made by the candidate that is not practiced as an officer, hurl the miserable sycophant from his exaltation, as God did Nebuchadnezzar, to crop the grass of the field with a beast's heart among the cattle. Let the penitentiaries be turned into Seminaries of learning, where intelligence, like the angels of heaven, would banish such fragments of barbarism.