The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901 Part 32

In the gubernatorial campaign of 1841-1842 Smith swung the Mormon vote back to the Democrats, giving them a majority of more than one thousand in the county. This was done publicly, in a letter addressed "To my friends in Illinois,"* dated December 20, 1841, in which the prophet, after pointing out that no persons at the state capital were more efficient in securing the pa.s.sage of the Nauvoo charter than the heads of the present Democratic ticket, made this declaration:--

* Times and Seasons, Vol. III, p. 651.

"The partisans in this county who expect to divide the friends of humanity and equal rights will find themselves mistaken. We care not a fig for Whig or Democrat; they are both alike to us; but we shall go for our friends, OUR TRIED FRIENDS, and the cause of human liberty which is the cause of G.o.d.... Snyder and Moore are known to be our friends....

We will never be justly charged with the sin of ingrat.i.tude,--they have served us, and we will serve them."

If Smith had been a man possessing any judgment, he would have realized that the political course which he was pursuing, instead of making friends in either party, would certainly soon arraign both parties against him and his followers. The Mormons announced themselves distinctly to be a church, and they were now exhibiting themselves as a religious body already numerically strong and increasing in numbers, which stood ready to obey the political mandate of one man, or at least of one controlling authority. The natural consequence of this soon manifested itself.

A congressional and a county election were approaching, and a ma.s.s meeting, made up of both Whigs and Democrats of Hanc.o.c.k County, was held to place in the field a non-Mormon county ticket. The fusion was not accomplished without heart-burnings on the part of some unsuccessful aspirants for nominations. A few of these went over to Smith, and the election resulted in the success of the state Democratic and the Mormon local ticket, legislative and county, Smith's brother William being elected to the House. It is easy to realize that this victory did not lessen Smith's aggressive egotism.

Some important matters were involved in the next political contest, the congressional election of August, 1843. The Whigs nominated Cyrus Walker, a lawyer of reputation living in McDonough County, and the Democrats J. P. Hoge, also a lawyer, but a weaker candidate at the polls. Every one conceded that Smith's dictum would decide the contest.

On May 6, 1842, Governor Boggs of Missouri, while sitting near a window in his house in Independence, was fired at, and wounded so severely that his recovery was for some days in doubt. The crime was naturally charged to his Mormon enemies,* and was finally narrowed down to O. P.

Rockwell,** a Mormon living in Nauvoo, as the agent, and Joseph Smith, Jr., as the instigator. Indictments were found against both of them in Missouri, and a requisition for Smith's surrender was made by the governor of that state on the governor of Illinois. Smith was arrested under the governor's warrant. Now came an ill.u.s.tration of the value to him of the form of government provided by the Nauvoo charter. Taken before his own munic.i.p.al court, he was released at once on a writ of habeas corpus. This a.s.sumption of power by a local court aroused the indignation of non-Mormons throughout the state. Governor Carlin characterized it somewhat later, in a letter to Smith's wife, as "most absurd and ridiculous; to attempt to exercise it is a gross usurpation of power that cannot be tolerated."***

* The hatred felt toward Governor Boggs by the Mormon leaders was not concealed. Thus, an editorial in the Times and Seasons of January 1, 1841, headed "Lilburn W. Boggs," began, "The THING whose name stands at the head of this article," etc. Referring to the ending of his term of office, the article said, "Lilburn has gone down to the dark and dreary abode of his brother and prototype, Nero, there to a.s.sociate with kindred spirits and partake of the dainties of his father's, the devil's, table."

Bennett afterward stated that he heard Joseph Smith say, on July 10, 1842, that Governor Boggs, "the exterminator, should be exterminated,"

and that the Destroying Angels (Danites) should do it; also that in the spring of that year he heard Smith, at a meeting of Danites, offer to pay any man $500 who would secretly a.s.sa.s.sinate the governor. Bennett's statement is only cited for what it may be worth; that some Mormon fired the shot is within the limit of strict probability.

** Rockwell, who, in his latter days, was employed by General Connor to guard stock in California, told the general that he fired the shot at Governor Boggs, and was sorry it did not kill him.--"Mormon Portraits," p. 255.

*** Millennial Star, Vol. XX, p. 23.

Notwithstanding his release, Smith thought it best to remain in hiding for some time to escape another arrest, for which the governor ordered a reward of $200. About the middle of August his a.s.sociates in Nauvoo concluded that the outlook for him was so bad, notwithstanding the protection which his city court was ready to afford, that it might be best for him to flee to the pine woods of the North country. Smith incorporates in his autobiography a long letter which he wrote to his wife at this time,* giving her directions about this flight if it should become necessary. Their goods were to be loaded on a boat manned by twenty of the best men who could be selected, and who would meet them at Prairie du Chien: "And from thence we will wend our way like larks up the Mississippi, until the towering mountains and rocks shall remind us of the places of our nativity, and shall look like safety and home; and there we will bid defiance to Carlin, Boggs, Bennett, and all their whorish wh.o.r.es and motley clan, that follow in their wake, Missouri not excepted, and until the d.a.m.nation of h.e.l.l rolls upon them by the voice and dread thunders and trump of the eternal G.o.d."

* Ibid., pp. 693-695.

In October Rigdon obtained from Justin b.u.t.terfield, United States attorney for Illinois, an opinion that Smith could not be held on a Missouri requisition for a crime committed in that state when he was in Illinois. In December, 1842, Smith was placed under arrest and taken before the United States District Court at Springfield, Illinois, under a writ of habeas corpus issued by Judge Roger B. Taney of the State Supreme Court. b.u.t.terfield, as his counsel, secured his discharge by Judge Pope (a Whig) who held that Smith was not a fugitive from Missouri.

While these proceedings were pending, the Nauvoo City Council (Smith was then mayor), pa.s.sed two ordinances in regard to the habeas corpus powers of the Munic.i.p.al Court, one giving that court jurisdiction in any case where a person "shall be or stand committed or detained for any criminal, or supposed criminal, matter."* This was intended to make Smith secure from the clutches of any Missouri officer so long as he was in his own city.

* For text of these ordinances, see millennial Star, Vol. XX, p.

165.

But Smith's enemy, General Bennett (who before this date had been cast out of the fold), was now very active, and through his efforts another indictment against Smith on the old charges of treason, murder, etc., was found in Missouri, in June, 1843, and under it another demand was made on the governor of Illinois for Smith's extradition. Governor Ford, a Democrat, who had succeeded Carlin, issued a warrant on June 17, 1843, and it was served on Smith while he was visiting his wife's sister in Lee County, Illinois. An attempt to start with him at once for Missouri was prevented by his Mormon friends, who rallied in considerable numbers to his aid. Smith secured counsel, who began proceedings against the Missouri agent and obtained a writ in Smith's behalf returnable, the account in the Times and Seasons says, before the nearest competent tribunal, which "it was ascertained was at Nauvoo"--Smith's own Munic.i.p.al Court. The prophet had a sort of triumphal entry into Nauvoo, and the question of the jurisdiction of the Munic.i.p.al Court in his case came up at once. Both of the candidates for Congress, Walker (who was employed as his counsel) and Hoge, gave opinions in favor of such jurisdiction, and, after a three hours' plea by Walker, the court ordered Smith's release. Smith addressed the people of Nauvoo in the grove after his return. From the report of his remarks in the journal of Discourses (Vol. II, p. 163) the following is taken:

"Before I will bear this unhallowed persecution any longer, before I will be dragged away again among my enemies for trial, I will spill the last drop of blood in my veins, and will see all my enemies in h.e.l.l....

Deny me the writ of habeas corpus, and I will fight with gun, sword, cannon, whirlwind, thunder, until they are used up like the Kilkenny cats.... If these [charter] powers are dangerous, then the const.i.tutions of the United States and of this state are dangerous. If the Legislature has granted Nauvoo the right of determining cases of habeas corpus, it is no more than they ought to have done, or more than our fathers fought for."

Smith expressed his grat.i.tude to Walker for what the latter had accomplished in his behalf, and the Whig candidate now had no doubt that the Mormon vote was his.

But the Missouri agent, indignant that a governor's writ should be set aside by a city court, hurried to Springfield and demanded that Governor Ford should call out enough state militia to secure Smith's arrest and delivery at the Missouri boundary. The governor, who was not a man of the firmest purpose, had no intention of being mixed up in the pending congressional fight and struggle for the Mormon vote; so he asked for delay and finally decided not to call out any troops.

The Hanc.o.c.k County Democrats were quick to see an opportunity in this situation, and they sent to Springfield a man named Backenstos (who took an active part in the violent scenes connected with the subsequent history of the Mormons in the state) to ascertain for the Mormons just what the governor's intentions were. Backenstos reported that the prophet need have no fear of the Democratic governor so long as the Mormons voted the Democratic ticket.*

* Governor Ford, in his "History of Illinois," says that such a pledge was given by a prominent Democrat, but without his own knowledge.

When this news was brought back to Nauvoo, a few days before the election, a ma.s.s meeting of the Mormons was called, and Hyrum Smith (then Patriarch, succeeding the prophet's father, who was dead) announced the receipt of a "revelation" directing the Mormons to vote for Hoge. William Law, an influential business man in the Mormon circle, immediately denied the existence of any such "revelation." The prophet alone could decide the matter. He was brought in and made a statement to the effect that he himself proposed to vote for Walker; that he considered it a "mean business" to influence any man's vote by dictation, and that he had no great faith in revelations about elections; "but brother Hyrum was a man of truth; he had known brother Hyrum intimately ever since he was a boy, and he had never known him to tell a lie. If brother Hyrum said he had received such a revelation, he had no doubt it was a fact. When the Lord speaks, let all the earth be silent." *

* Ford's"History of Illinois," p. 318.

The election resulted in the choice of Hoge by a majority of 455!

CHAPTER VI. -- SMITH A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Smith's latest triumph over his Missouri enemies, with the feeling that he had the governor of his state back of him, increased his own and his followers' audacity. The Nauvoo Council continued to pa.s.s ordinances to protect its inhabitants from outside legal processes, civil and criminal. One of these provided that no writ issued outside of Nauvoo for the arrest of a person in that city should be executed until it had received the mayor's approval, anyone violating this ordinance to be liable to imprisonment for life, with no power of pardon in the governor without the mayor's consent! The acquittal of O. P. Rockwell on the charge of the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of Governor Boggs caused great delight among the Mormons, and their organ declared on January 1, 1844, that "throughout the whole region of country around us those bitter and acrimonious feelings, which have so long been engendered by many, are dying away."

Smith's political ideas now began to broaden. "Who shall be our next President?" was the t.i.tle of an editorial in the Times and Seasons of October 1, 1843, which urged the selection of a man who would be most likely to give the Mormons help in securing redress for their grievances.

The next month Smith addressed a letter to Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, who were the leading candidates for the presidential nomination, citing the Mormons' losses and sufferings in Missouri, and their failure to obtain redress in the courts or from Congress, and asking, "What will be your rule of action relative to us as a people should fortune favor your ascendancy to the chief magistracy? "Clay replied that, if nominated, he could "enter into no engagements, make no promises, give no pledges to any particular portion of the people of the United States," adding, "If I ever enter into that high office, I must go into it free and unfettered, with no guarantees but such as are to be drawn from my whole life, character and conduct." He closed with an expression of sympathy with the Mormons "in their sufferings under injustice." Calhoun replied that, if elected President, he would try to administer the government according to the const.i.tution and the laws, and that, as these made no distinction between citizens of different religious creeds, he should make none. He repeated an opinion which he had given Smith in Was.h.i.+ngton that the Mormon case against the state of Missouri did not come within the jurisdiction of the federal government.

These replies excited Smith to wrath and he answered them at length, and in language characteristic of himself. A single quotation from his letter to Clay (dated May 13, 1844) will suffice:--

"In your answer to my question, last fall, that peculiar trait of the modern politician, declaring 'if you ever enter into that high office, you must go into it unfettered, with no guarantees but such as are to be drawn from your whole life, character and conduct,' so much resembles a lottery vender's sign, with the G.o.ddess of good luck sitting on the car of fortune, astraddle of the horn of plenty, and driving the merry steeds of beat.i.tude, without reins or bridle, that I cannot help exclaiming, 'O, frail man, what have you done that will exalt you? Can anything be drawn from your LIFE, CHARACTER OR CONDUCT that is worthy of being held up to the gaze of this nation as a model of VIRTUE, CHARACTER AND WISDOM?'... 'Your whole life, character and conduct' have been spotted with deeds that causes a blush upon the face of a virtuous patriot; so you must be contented with your lot, while crime, cowardice, cupidity or low cunning have handed you down from the high tower of a statesman to the black hole of a gambler.... c.r.a.pe the heavens with weeds of woe; gird the earth with sackcloth, and let h.e.l.l mutter one melody in commemoration of fallen splendor! For the glory of America has departed, and G.o.d will set a flaming sword to guard the tree of liberty, while such mint-t.i.thing Herods as Van Buren, Boggs, Benton, Calhoun, and Clay are thrust out of the realms of virtue as fit subjects for the kingdom of fallen greatness--vox reprobi, vox Diaboli."

Calhoun was admonished to read the eighth section of article one of the federal const.i.tution, after which "G.o.d, who cooled the heat of a Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, or shut the mouths of lions for the honor of a Daniel, will raise your mind above the narrow notion that the general government has no power, to the sublime idea that Congress, with the President as executor, is as almighty in its sphere as Jehovah is in his." 1

*For this correspondence in full, see Times and Seasons, January 1, and June 1, 1844, or Mackay's "The Mormons," p. 143.

Smith's next step was to have judge Phelps read to a public meeting in Nauvoo on February 7, 1844, a very long address by the prophet, setting forth his views on national politics.* He declared that "no honest man can doubt for a moment but the glory of American liberty is on the wane, and that calamity and confusion will sooner or later destroy the peace of the people," while "the motto hangs on the nation's escutcheon, 'every man has his price.'"

* For its text, see Times and Seasons, May 15,1844, or Mackay's "The Mormons," p.133.

Smith proposed an abundance of remedies for these evils: Reduce the members of Congress at least one-half; pay them $2 a day and board; pet.i.tion the legislature to pardon every convict, and make the punishment for any felony working on the roads or some other place where the culprit can be taught wisdom and virtue, murder alone to be cause for confinement or death; pet.i.tion for the abolition of slavery by the year 1850, the slaves to be paid for out of the surplus from the sale of public lands, and the money saved by reducing the pay of Congress; establish a national bank, with branches in every state and territory, "whose officers shall be elected yearly by the people, with wages of $2 a day for services," the currency to be limited to "the amount of capital stock in her vaults, and interest"; "and the bills shall be par throughout the nation, which will mercifully cure that fatal disorder known in cities as brokery, and leave the people's money in their own pockets"; give the President full power to send an army to suppress mobs; "send every lawyer, as soon as he repents and obeys the ordinances of heaven, to preach the Gospel to the dest.i.tute, without purse or scrip"; "spread the federal jurisdiction to the west sea, when the red men give their consent"; and give the right hand of fellows.h.i.+p to Texas, Canada, and Mexico. He closed with this declaration: "I would, as the universal friend of man, open the prisons, open the eyes, open the ears, and open the hearts of all people to behold and enjoy freedom, unadulterated freedom; and G.o.d, who once cleansed the violence of the earth with a flood, whose Son laid down his life for the salvation of all his father gave him out of the world, and who has promised that he will come and purify the world again with fire in the last days, should be supplicated by me for the good of all people. With the highest esteem, I am a friend of virtue and of the people."