PROVO, Utah -- American Mormons love flags, fireworks and the Fourth of July. But it wasn't always that way, said Ryan Tobler, a recent graduate in English and history at BYU.

Tobler spoke on Thursday, July 2, at BYU during the Mormon Scholars Foundation Summer Seminar "Parley and Orson Pratt and the Formation of Mormon Thought." Tobler's paper examined Parley Pratt's shifting views on the promise and role of America.

At first, according to Tobler, early Latter-day Saints were very patriotic -- agreeing with their countrymen that America's progress was part of God's overall plan. Pratt saw America as an "empire of freedom," and enjoyed "the most exalted feelings of patriotism and love of country."

But then unchecked persecution came down upon the members of the LDS Church.

"By 1833, the Mormons had suffered their first full-scale dislocation from Jackson County, Mo.," Tobler said. "Parley Pratt was in Missouri, an eyewitness as the Saints were brutalized."

Pratt was horrified at the atrocities committed around him. He wrote that he couldn't believe such things could happen "in the broad light of the nineteenth century, and in the boasted land of liberty."

After Jackson County, members of the LDS Church regrouped in the north of the state. On the Fourth of July, 1838, Mormons erected a tall "liberty pole" in Far West, Mo., to fly the stars and stripes. The speeches were patriotic and extolled the Constitution and how they were willing to fight for their rights.

"But the promise of Independence Day was fleeting," Tobler said. Their enemies were infuriated by what they saw as a threat of violence. When the liberty pole was struck by lightening, the Mormons saw it as a bad omen.

True to the premonition, the Mormons were soon displaced from Far West and the surrounding communities in a conflict similar to what happened in Jackson County, Tobler said.

The Mormon's opinion of the United States continued to decline as they sensed a betrayal of the principles of the Constitution.

The next Independence Day found Pratt in jail for attempted murder for his role in defending the church at a battle with the mob. Even in this circumstance, Pratt and his fellow prisoners made a makeshift American flag with "Liberty" written on it in red. They stuck it out the cell window to the interest, amusement and scorn of those who saw it.

Eventually Pratt rejoined the Saints in Nauvoo, Ill.

Pratt's confidence was waning in the United States. He recognized its role in being the cradle of the Restoration, but saw its future as bleak. In a fictional dream of the future, Pratt wrote of the republic's ultimate downfall. "The spirit of freedom withdrew from the mass. Divisions and contentions arose and thus ended the confederation under the title of E Pluribus Unum."

The martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith seemed to be the last straw. In 1844 and 1845, Pratt was in the eastern United States. He received a letter from Lyman Littlefield written from Nauvoo on the Fourth of July. "A great contrast must exist between Nauvoo and other cities," Littlefield wrote, "simply because the people of Nauvoo have too much candor and intelligence to celebrate a thing that has no existence. . . . American liberty expired with the prophets at their martyrdom in Carthage jail."

Pratt longed to leave New York and return to Nauvoo or to a mission to the American Indians. He was "now done with this city and nearly so with the nation."

The work of God and the progress of the United States were no longer one and the same, Tobler said. There was to be a bright future, but it didn't include America.

But then, as the Saints left their City of Joseph, and set their hope on the West, something changed. Brigham Young agreed with a request from the United States to raise the Mormon Battalion.

"On July 9, 1846, Parley Pratt, his disillusionment concealed, transcended or forgotten, communicated Young's endorsement of the call to arms to the reluctant Saints," Tobler said.

Pratt told them that it was divine providence that they could do this to "secure a permanent home in that country and thus lay a foundation for a territorial or a state government under the Constitution of the United States . . . and to assist in the redemption of our country."

The act of raising the battalion re-attached the LDS Church to the American Republic, Tobler said. There would be additional conflicts, but "the question of political identity was settled."

"In time, and over generations, the Saints were able to forgive the United States its trespasses," Tobler said. "They rebuilt a tradition of patriotism and love of country. Ultimately they came to believe that the cause of God had more to do with the United States than they had once understood."

E-mail: mdegroote@desnews.com