Alma 51

which started out peacefully enough.

But you get the routine: new dissent, new gamesmanship, new bloodshed. This time it started with people wanting to change the law. Should be simple enough. But you know politics.

The stick in the mud: Pahoran. He wouldn’t accept any petitions, no matter how many signatures they had. So the petitioners plotted to throw him out of office.

We should note that it was no small point of law. They wanted to change from an elected judge system to a monarchy. So its proponents got the nickname “kingmen.” Pahoran’s supporters then became known as “freemen.”

Pahoran called for a vote on retaining him in office. (This was de facto a vote on the petitions, since it was obvious his reluctance to hold a general vote on them undermined the very notion of “preserving freedom of the people” that was the sign on his door.) The vote came in to retain him, though, to be fair, he was the judge over the accuracy of the vote tally. His supporters thought that would silence his opponents. Majority rules.

Wrong.

The kingmen had aristocratic roots in the Old World and therefore assumed they would be likely “candidates” for complete authority. Their only notion of community spirit was to support one another in gaining absolute power as a group—though only one of them would be king. And we know where that leads.

This all happened at a bad time. Amalickiah was on the warpath again. He had made an oath, you’ll recall, to drink Moroni’s blood. A fine rhetorician, he was able to rouse supporters to his cause through speeches to stadium crowds.

He couldn’t raise so large an army as before, of course—most of his old army was dead. But he trained the smaller, leaner one well. And this time he personally leaked the information that his troops were training and would soon be on their way to Zarahemla—with him in the front ranks.

By now we were into the twenty-fifth year of the judges and the chief issue among the Lamanites was … judges. When the kingmen heard about the resurgence of Lamanite troops, they vowed not to fight, a faux pacifism grounded in their political aims.

When he saw what was going on with Amalickiah and these snobby dissenters, Moroni got mad. Very mad. Madder than anyone had ever seen him. He got up his own petition, collected signatures, and sent it to the governor. He authorized compulsory enlistment. Moroni could put to death anyone who wouldn’t serve. If you claimed “conscientious objector” deferment, you’d be executed.

Moroni justified this by tracing all previous disasters to dissent. Every bit the speechifier that Amalickiah was, he persuaded the majority of people to support his new plan.

He ordered his troops to go house to house and round up any kingmen, forcing them at arrowpoint to enlist and support the cause of liberty. Moroni said this would “pull down the pride and nobility” of the monarchists. True enough. You can’t be proud when you’re dead, except with the posthumous pride of defending yourself, your homes, your wives and children, all the old-fashioned values Moroni had always championed. Monarchists, though, if they attempted self-defense got hacked to death by Moroni’s special forces.

They killed four thousand, snap, like that. Sick of it, they threw some into prison. No time for trials, despite all those judges.

Those who preferred breathing opted for the mandate to defend “liberty” as it was then being enforced. They were issued swords and had to be ready to swing them, between hanging posters on scout towers.

Thus Moroni suppressed the pride and power-grabbing of a would-be monarchy. Humiliate and threaten people till they submit to freedom. Kill the ones who don’t. Nice plan.

While Moroni executed his mandatory humbling, subjecting them to his brand of civilization in the name of theocracy, the Lamanites arrived on the borders of the coastal city named for him.

The area was poorly armed. Amalickiah won. High casualties. A complete Lamanite takeover of the region. Those who escaped went to Nephihah and Lehi-by-the-Sea to regroup. Amalickiah, learning of this, decided to conquer smaller cities and potentially build up troops for a larger assault on the big ones. It worked. He moved on to the two I’ve mentioned, as well as Omner, Gid, and Mulek all on the east coast. The Lamanite Empire had begun.

Their juggernaut rolled into Bountiful, crushing the Nephite population, till Amalickiah’s army was met by Teancum’s, who fought back ferociously. Teancum’s army was not so much better equipped as better built: diet and exercise—along with some intuitive cross-breeding—had made bigger, heavier stock men. They fought to a bloody stalemate, then both armies camped, Amalickiah’s on the beach, Teancum’s on the Bountiful border.

At night, Teancum and his footman crept into Amalickiah’s camp, quietly walked into his tent and rammed a javelin through his heart. Because the death was instant and he made no sound, just jerked a little, none of his slaves or troops heard what happened. The assassins made a clean getaway.

Back at their own camp Teancum woke up his men and told the story. They needed to be ready for reprisal.

This was all at the end of the twenty-fifth year of the judges’ reign.