If the people [of Missouri] come on us to molest us, we will establish our religion by the sword. We will trample down our enemies and make it one gore of blood from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. I will be to this generation a second Mohammed, whose motto in treating for peace was ‘the Quran or the Sword.’ So shall it eventually be with us – Joseph Smith or the Sword – Joseph Smith's Declaration of War in Missouri, October 14, 1838, History of the Church, Vol. 3, p. 167.
The idea of "Mormon Pacifists" is a hoot.
In his History of Utah, the noted historian Hubert Bancroft, records the Missouri Mormon War of 1838, the Illinois Mormon Wars of 1944 and 1847, and the Utah Mormon War of 1857. In each instance, the U.S. Army and/or National Guard was commissioned to stop the Saints from slaughtering each other and/or their Gentile neighbors.
Bancroft also chronicles six Mormon Civil Wars. The Walker War (1853-4) and Black Hawk War (1865-72) were two in a series of eight named Mormon / Indian wars that lasted decades and were among some of the most violent and longest running American Indian conflicts in U.S. history. About 400 Shoshones were killed at the Bear River Massacre, the worst slaughter if Indians in US history (compare to the 153 Indians killed at Wounded Knee). This incident was provoked by and in some sense led by the Saints.
And who can forget the Danites a.k.a. Avenging Angels a.k.a. Mormon Militia, the Saints equivalent of the Klu Klux Klan, who murdered hundreds (some say thousands) in Missouri, Illinois, and Utah -- and beat and castrated thousands more. Or Porter Rockwell (shown above), the worst murderer in US history, who is credited with 200 killings not including the three dozen or US soldiers who perished at Fort Bridger as a consequence of his ambush of their supply caravans.
And then there was the Mountain Meadows Massacre where approximately 120 Gentiles were murdered and 18 children were kidnapped so that the Saints could feast on the 1,000 (or so) head of cattle the settlers were herding to Southern California. This incident remains the worst robbery-murder in US history.
In fact, with the exception of Islam, a powerful argument can be made that the Saints have been the most violent cult in history. The claim that they were pacifist in the manner of, say, Quakers or Mennonites, is about as ridiculous as their assertion that they are Christian.
