Brigham Young will fight you.

I'm taking a 'Prophets of the Church' class this semester at BYU. Every class period we learn about a different prophet, and last week was Brigham Young. We learned about a time when several members of the church held a meeting to try and get rid of Joseph Smith. The account of the meeting, as recorded by Brigham Young himself goes as follows:

On a certain occasion several of the Twelve, the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, and others of the Authorities of the Church, held a council in the upper room of the [Kirtland] Temple. The question before them was to ascertain how the Prophet Joseph could be deposed, and David Whitmer appointed President of the Church. Father John Smith, Brother Heber C. Kimball and others were present, who were opposed to such measures. I rose up, and in a plain and forcible manner told them that Joseph was a Prophet, and I knew it, and that they might rail and slander him as much as they pleased, they could not destroy the appointment of the Prophet of God, they could only destroy their own authority, cut the thread that bound them to the Prophet and to God and sink themselves to hell. Many were highly enraged at my decided opposition to their measures, and Jacob Bump (an old pugilist) was so exasperated that he could not be still. Some of the brethren near him put their hands on him, and requested him to be quiet; but he writhed and twisted his arms and body saying, "How can I keep my hands off that man?" I told him if he thought it would give him any relief he might lay them on. This meeting was broken up without the apostates being able to unite on any decided measures of opposition.

A pugilist is a boxer by the way. I love this story about Brigham Young. He was ready to not only defend the prophet with his words, but it's pretty clear that if you mess with Joseph Smith, Brigham Young WILL fight you.