No Man Knows My History (Arkosh History)

by Fawn M. Brodie

Any man with absolute dominion over a people, who brooks no advice that does not further his own daydreams and who- UNFINISHED NAUVOO HOUSE -grinds out policies solely in the grist-mill of his own ambition, sets up a kind of centrifugal force within himself that — by turning always away from the normal — may one day destroy him. “Joseph would allow no arrogance or undue liberties,” said one friend, “and criticisms, even by his associates, were rarely acceptable, and contradictions would rouse in him the lion at once, for by no one of his fellows would he be superseded.” # Herein was his great strength and his most fatal weakness. For no man whose chief virtues were love of compromise, justice, and prudence could set himself up as a prophet. But neither could any man who trampled on these virtues survive as a political force in America.