MR. SCHROEDER AND THE DAVIDSON STATEMENT.
There is something amusing in the attitude of Mr. Schroeder towards this Davidson statement. Although Mr. Schroeder declares in so many words that "Mrs. Davidson never wrote it," and hence must admit it to be a forgery by Reverend gentlemen; yet, since the Haven interview represents Mrs. Davidson as saying that it was "true in the main," Mr. Schroeder dogmatizes thus in regard to this "piece of evidence:"—"Even with her re-affirmance of the story as published, we cannot give it evidentiary weight, except in those matters where it is plain from the nature of things that she must have been speaking from personal knowledge."[84] Why, in the name of all that is reasonable? If her re-affirmance is to re-instate any part of the story as worthy of belief, why not all of it, and all the parts equally? Is Mr. Schroeder to pick and choose from his own witnesses as he will, allowing this, but discarding that, as suits his personal view of the Spaulding theory?
[Footnote 84: American Historical Magazine, September, 1906, p. 394, ante p. 29.]
What is behind all this proposed jugglery? Simply this: I have already pointed out how vital to Mr. Schroeder's case it is to establish the existence of a second Spaulding manuscript, dealing with American antiquities, a "re-written" story different from this manuscript story now safely lodged in Oberlin college. There is nothing of all this in the Davidson statement. This in the eyes of Mr. Schroeder is its first sin, one of omission. Another thing essential to Mr. Schroeder's contention is a second submission of the Spaulding manuscript to the Patterson-Lambdin publishers, after the Spauldings had made their home in Amity, Washington county, Pa. Mrs. (Spaulding) Davidson "says," observes Mr. Schroeder, "that before leaving Pittsburg for Amity, her husband's manuscript was returned by the publishers." * * * "She seemingly remembers nothing of its second submission while her husband resided at Amity, or else those who wrote and signed her statement didn't see fit to mention it."[85] This is the second sin of omission in the Davidson statement. And right here it may be as well to notice another singular thing in reference to these Spaulding documents, the alleged Davidson statement and Mrs. McKinstry's affidavit, the former published in 1839, the latter in 1880—while both are very explicit as to affairs over at Conneaut, there is nothing said in the statement of either about the readings of the manuscript alleged to have taken place before the Amity neighbors, whence come the Amity witnesses, Joseph Miller and Redic McKee. This silence is all the more inexplicable because it was here that the final "polishing" and preparing for the press of the Schroeder-assumed "rewritten" manuscript was going on; and Mrs. McKinstry was more competent to remember such things than when at Conneaut, because then of less tender years. Indeed if the Davidson statement is insisted upon as evidence, then Mr. Spaulding refused to have his manuscript published, even though Mr. Patterson suggested it, as he had only written it for his own amusement!
[Footnote 85: American Historical Magazine, p. 392-3. (How careless of him!) Ante p. 28.]
The next sin of the Davidson statement is one of commission. The success of Mr. Schroeder's case against the Book of Mormon depends upon establishing his contention that Sidney Rigdon stole the Spaulding manuscript from the printing office of Patterson and Lambdin; and that, after October, 1816, (the time of Spaulding's death), the Schroeder-assumed "rewritten" manuscript was never in the hands of "anybody but Sidney Rigdon." But if the re-affirmance of the Davidson statement is to be admitted at all, in evidence, then, according to Mrs. Davidson, before the family removed from Pittsburg to Amity, the Spaulding manuscript was "returned to its author, and soon after," says the Davidson statement, "we removed to Amity, Washington county, etc., where Mr. Spaulding deceased in 1816. The manuscript then fell into my hands, and was carefully preserved. It has frequently been examined by my daughter, Mrs. McKinstry, of Monson, Mass., with whom I now reside, and by other friends."[86]
[Footnote 86: See Davidson statement in the text above.]
This statement, let it be observed, would not fall within the items which even Mr. Schroeder would exclude from the Davidson statement if readmitted as evidence; for it is very clear that as to this item the lady was speaking of a thing about which she had "personal knowledge," the "shibboleth" which gives "evidentiary weight" to what the lady is supposed to have testified to in this "shady" document. But against this damaging affirmation of the Davidson document, about the return of the Spaulding manuscript to its author, and Mrs. (Spaulding) Davidson's subsequent possession and care of it, Mr. Schroeder says: "Upon the question as to whether or not Spaulding's re-written manuscript was in the possession of anybody but Rigdon at any time after October, 1816, Mrs. Davidson's statement as published cannot in any sense whatever be considered as evidence."[87]
[Footnote 87: American Historical Magazine, September, 1906, p. 394 Ante p. 29. (Sic!)]
The reader will now better understand Mr. Schroeder's attitude: what agrees with his theory in the Davidson statement shall be accepted; what contradicts it, must be discarded; and this may be applied to the gentleman's attitude to pretty much the whole mass of testimony upon the subject. The attitude of Mr. Schroeder, however, cannot be conceded as proper. Either he must admit the force of the Davidson statement against his contentions, as well as where it favors them, or else he must discredit the Davidson evidence altogether. One may not have his cake and at the same time eat it. We care not which he does in respect of this particular "piece of evidence." It will be equally advantageous to our argument, which he does.
But let us see in what plight this statement leaves Mr. Schroeder's case. If, Mrs. (Spaulding) Davidson is right about the return of the Spaulding manuscript to its author while yet at Pittsburg; that it was taken to Amity, and after the decease of Mr. Spaulding fell into the hands of Mrs. Spaulding, and "was carefully preserved" by her, and was "frequently examined" by her daughter,—then Sidney Rigdon did not steal it from Patterson and Lambdin's printing office, whatever Rigdon's connection with that office might have been; and Mr. Schroeder is under the necessity of abandoning one of the chief elements of his case; an element so essential that if abandoned his case collapses into confusion.
To Mr. Schroeder's mind the theft of the manuscript by Mr. Rigdon is the one circumstance that will harmonize all the alleged "established facts," and make the Spaulding theory tenable. To this end he repudiates four other theories as to how the Spaulding manuscript reached the hands of Joseph Smith, by him to be exploited as the Book of Mormon. First, the theory that Joseph Smith himself secured the manuscript from the house of Wm. H. Sabine in 1823 (John Hyde's theory.)[88] Second, that Sidney Rigdon copied the manuscript while it was at the printing office of Patterson and Lambdin, (the Storrs-Austin-Davidson statement theory, and also the Spaulding family theory).[89] Third, that Joseph Smith copied it while working for Wm. H. Sabine (brother of Mrs. (Spaulding) Davidson, be it remembered), about 1823, but leaving the original there. Fourth, the theory that Spaulding copied his story for the publisher "while keeping the duplicate at home to be afterwards cared for by the family." Of course, "these various theories" were all invented because of a supposed necessity of accounting for the alleged presence of the re-written 'Manuscript Found' in the trunk at Sabine's house after 1816, the date of Spaulding's death. So says Mr. Schroeder.[90]
[Footnote 88: "Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs," by John Hyde, Jr. (1857) p. 279.]
[Footnote 89: "New Light on Mormonism," grand-niece of Mrs. (Solomon Spaulding) Davidson, (1885). She declares that Mrs. McKinstry "remembers how her mother talked on the subject, expressing a firm conviction that Sidney Rigdon had copied the manuscript which had been in Mr. Patterson's office in Pittsburg," p. 23, 24.]
[Footnote 90: American Historical Magazine, September, 1906, p. 390, ante pp. 24, 25.]
Very naturally all those interested in maintaining the theory that Spaulding's manuscript was the original source of the Book of Mormon—except Mr. Schroeder—would be anxious to maintain the integrity of both the Davidson statement and Mrs. McKinstry's affidavit, published in Scribner's Magazine for August, 1880, as the most valuable evidence in existence for the anti-Mormon side of this controversy. But to preserve that integrity they must vindicate Sidney Rigdon from theft of the Spaulding manuscript, for both these witnesses declare the Spaulding manuscript to be in their possession after the death of Spaulding in 1816. The Davidson statement represents that the "Manuscript Found," the very manuscript in controversy, that Spaulding had placed in the hands of Patterson "for perusal," was returned to Spaulding before the family left Pittsburg; and at his death, two years later, fell into Mrs. (Spaulding) Davidson's hands, and "was carefully preserved;" was frequently examined by her daughter, Mrs. McKinstry, "and by other friends." Mrs. McKinstry testifies as to the association of her father, Solomon Spaulding, with Mr. Patterson, at Pittsburg; also as to the contents of the trunk that had been taken to her uncle's, Wm. H. Sabine, by her mother and herself shortly after the death of her father, containing the papers of her father; and there she claims to have seen the manuscript that the Davidson statement says she "frequently examined;" and "on the outside of this manuscript were written the words, 'Manuscript Found.'" She did not read it, "but looked through it," and had it many times in her hands and saw the names she "had heard at Conneaut," when her father read the said manuscript to his friends.[91]
[Footnote 91: See the McKinstry affidavit.]
Nothing could be more explicit than these statements of mother and daughter, and both were in the closest relations to Solomon Spaulding; and what they say is supplemented and emphasized by the grand-niece of Mrs. (Spaulding) Davidson, Ellen Dickinson, who, in her "New Light on Mormonism," represents Mrs. McKinstry as insisting that her mother said,—and the impression is created that she repeatedly said it—"that Mr. Spaulding had assured her that he had recovered his original manuscript when Patterson had refused to publish it, and she never varied or doubted in this belief."[92]
[Footnote 92: "New Light on Mormonism," p. 23, 24.]