Few moments of democratic crisis in American history were as dramatic as the clash between Mormons and their Illinois neighbors during the 1840s. Led by founder and prophet Joseph Smith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints settled on a marshy peninsula, which they renamed Nauvoo in 1839, in hopes of finally securing the social peace and political acceptance that had long eluded them. Instead, a vigilante mob killed Smith while he was held in state custody in 1844, and nearly the entire community was forced to evacuate the state 18 months later. How could this happen in a nation that prides itself on religious liberty and democratic belonging?

James Simeone attempts to answer this question by placing the Mormon crisis within the context of political theory. Antebellum Illinois, he argues, was a developing democracy with a governing structure that was still inchoate and inconsistent, which enabled majoritarian cultures to bully minority groups. Local majorities were therefore allowed to determine who counted as “independent producers”—a category that granted individuals the rights and obligations of citizenship and allowed them to belong to the wider society. Denied such a privileged status, the Mormons were therefore sacrificed on the altar of social stability.

Simeone traces the origins and development of the community’s clash with their non-Mormon neighbors, which he frames as rooted in a division between “individualist and egalitarian subcultures” (p. 32). He notes disputes over secular authority, debates over dissenters, and, most persuasively, Smith’s use of legal mechanisms like habeas corpus. All these controversial initiatives resulted in a state skeptical of Nauvoo’s motives. The final straw, according to Simeone, was when Smith declared his own presidential campaign, a move that “was catastrophic for the Mormons in Illinois” (p. 77) because it dissolved any possible relationships with existing political parties within the state. By the time that Governor Thomas Ford—the story’s tragic hero—tried to intervene, it was too late. Trust in the government system had become too frayed, and many saw extralegal violence as the only solution.

The historical narrative is more complicated than Simeone allows, however. Smith’s presidential campaign was mostly seen as more laughable than dangerous, with most spectators dismissing it as an oddity. More pressing, at least to the mob that marched on Carthage Jail where Smith was held in Hancock County in June 1844, was a combination of his legal maneuvering, political machinations, and the state’s continued negligence. The mob, naming itself the Warsaw Committee of Safety, even penned a manifesto justifying its actions, which did not mention Smith’s presidential aspirations. Simeone fails to engage this significant document nor the controversial habeas corpus case of Jeremiah Smith, whose ordeal that spring enflamed already simmering tensions.

Part of the reason it is difficult to gauge the significance of individual events in The Saints and the State is that the book’s nonchronological narrative pushes historical development to the margins in favor of thematic investigation. This results in both the work’s strengths and weaknesses. Simeone is at his best when explicating how this tragic episode exemplifies key principles of democratic governance, and his comparisons of the Mormon conflicts to other Illinois crises, like those over slavery and abolition, make important contributions. But in prioritizing theory over experience, the chronology becomes fuzzy, and individual people or episodes take on outsized importance.

Further, Simeone often grants more coherence to the political beliefs of historical actors than is likely warranted while overlooking how emotion could often drive action on both sides. For example, the virulent anti-Mormon editor Thomas Sharp is cast as an embodiment of “competitive individualism” (p. 235), rather than just one of the many involved in the mob who defended their actions through a myriad of passionate reasons, not merely complicated political theory.

The reason why Thomas Ford, governor at the time of Smith’s death, is the book’s tragic hero is because he exemplifies Simeone’s primary lesson: Ford was a true, if naïve, believer in democracy, but that meant that he hoped the state could keep the peace between warring parties by remaining neutral. Such a position proved fictitious. Ford, Simeone persuasively argues, failed to recognize that majoritarian cultures often used the law—as well as extralegal measures—to protect society, a cultural construct that is rarely reflected in neutral justice. The solution is that governments must acknowledge majoritarian biases and, rather than maintaining the illusion of innocence, should instead strive for fairness. States should first acknowledge and then work to control prejudices or risk oppressing those outside the mainstream.

Simeone’s strengths not only include a sophisticated awareness of and engagement with broader political theories but also a deep understanding of Illinois politics. The Saints and the State is an excellent overview of the issues that dominated the state during the 1830s and 1840s, piecing together personalities and policies that drove both the Democrats and the Whigs. Much of this knowledge is gleaned from an exhaustive immersion in the state’s newspapers, which form the brunt of the work’s primary source base. However, similar research was not done in the personal papers that could have better captured the ideas and background of the participants. The bibliography reveals that Simeone never visited the LDS Church’s own archives, where thousands of documents crucial to Nauvoo’s history are housed; this missing piece severely limited the book’s engagement with the period.

The author’s expertise in Illinois political history also did not compensate for his unfamiliarity with Mormon historiography. This resulted in a number of admittedly minor mistakes, like saying that the LDS Church denied Joseph Smith’s polygamy for years and that the Community of Christ still denies it to this day (pp. 70–71), both of which are untrue: the LDS Church always identified Smith as a polygamist, and the Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, began acknowledging it in the 1980s. Another error is claiming that Joseph Smith introduced the Melchizedek Priesthood as a governing body in 1841, when it occurred a decade earlier (p. 241). But there are more serious issues as well that undercut Simeone’s broader thesis. For instance, he compares the Mormon Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the Council of Fifty to a “bicameral congress,” claiming Smith was merely replicating political institutions within his own ecclesiology (p. 75). Such a framework drastically misunderstands Mormonism’s power structure, which in many ways was an explicit rejection of democratic institutions. Indeed, Simeone fails to engage the Council of Fifty, Smith’s explicitly theocratic organization whose long-sequestered minutes were finally released in 2016. Such documents could have not only fleshed out his narrative but also likely challenged several of his key arguments.

These limitations aside, The Saints and the State is a compelling analysis of ideological questions at the heart of America’s democratic experiment. Is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people equipped to balance majoritarian biases with minority rights? By elevating Nauvoo to a key case study for this dynamic, Simeone offers an important reminder that the nation’s democratic promise has never been fully realized and that by digging into past failures we can better address future concerns.