From what I understand, some people feel that leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have kept hidden that Joseph Smith had more than one wife. They claim that the Church did not want to "tarnish" Joseph Smith's reprutation by openly admitting that he was a law breaker and a polygamist.
Let's take a look at these claims. First of all, the United States did not even have a law against polygamy until the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act was passed in on July 8, 1862. I think most of us just assume that polygamy was always illegal in the United States, but it wasn't. Therefore, since Joseph Smith died on June 27, 1844, he could not have been breaking the law, because this law didn't even exist until eighteen years later.
