Chapter VI

MEMORIAL OF CITY COUNCIL TO CONGRESS ANENT MISSOURI AFFAIRS--ROCKWELL'S RETURN TO NAUVOO--RECITAL OF HIS ADVENTURES--AVERY'S ACQUITTAL BY MISSOURI'S COURTS--NAUVOO'S POLICE FORCE INCREASED--PUBLICATIONS ON MORMONISM, PRO ET CON--1843.

_Thursday, December 21, 1843.--_About one o'clock in the morning I was alarmed by the firing of a gun, got up, and went down to the river bank to see the guard, and inquire the cause of it. To my surprise, they had not heard it, although I felt sure it was fired in Montrose. The morning proved it to be correct, some rowdies in Montrose had been firing in the night.

At noon met with the City Council which voted that Councilor Orson Pratt present the Memorial and Ordinance to Congress.

Passed "An ordinance to prevent unlawful search or seizure of person or property by foreign [i.e. outside] process in the city of Nauvoo."

Heber C. Kimball resigned his office as city auctioneer and Charles Warner was re-elected.

John P. Greene was duly elected city marshal, in the room of Henry G. Sherwood, who expects to leave soon.

[Sidenote: The Prophet for a Clean, Orderly City.]

I gave instructions to the marshal and policemen to see that all carrion is removed out of the city, and all houses kept in order,--to stop the boys when fighting in the streets, and prevent children from floating off on the ice, and correct anything out of order, like fathers; and I offered to build the city jail, if it was left to my dictation, which the Council authorized me to do.

{125} I insert the Memorial from the City Council to the Congress of the United States for redress of grievances and protection from further persecution, which was signed by them:--

MEMORIAL OF THE CITY COUNCIL TO CONGRESS.

_"To the Honorable Senators and Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_,

We, the undersigned members of the City Council of the City of
Nauvoo, citizens of Hancock County, Illinois, and exiles from
the State of Missouri, being in council assembled, unanimously
and respectfully, for ourselves, and in behalf of many thousands
of other exiles, memorialize the honorable Senators and
Representatives of our nation upon the subject of the unparalleled
persecutions and cruelties inflicted upon us and upon our
constituents by the constituted authorities of the State of
Missouri, and likewise upon the subject of the present unfortunate
circumstances in which we are placed in the land of our exile. As
a history of the Missouri outrages has been extensively published,
both in this country and in Europe, it is deemed unnecessary to
particularize all of the wrongs and grievances inflicted upon us in
this memorial. As there is an abundance of well-attested documents
to which your honorable body can at any time refer, hence we only
embody the following important items for your consideration.

First:--Your memorialists, as freeborn citizens of this great
republic, relying with the utmost confidence upon the sacred
"articles of the Constitution," by which the several States are
bound together, and considering ourselves entitled to all the
privileges and immunities of free citizens in what State soever we
desired to locate ourselves, commenced a settlement in the county
of Jackson, on the western frontiers of the State of Missouri, in
the summer of 1831.

There we purchased lands from the Government, erected several
hundred houses, made extensive improvements, and shortly the wild
and lonely prairies and stately forests were converted into well
cultivated and fruitful fields. There we expected to spend our days
in the enjoyment of all the rights and liberties bequeathed to us
by the sufferings and blood of our noble ancestors. But alas! our
expectations were vain.

Two years had scarcely elapsed before we were unlawfully and
unconstitutionally assaulted by an organized mob, consisting of the
highest officers in the county, both civil and military, who openly
and boldly avowed their determination in a written circular to
drive us from said county.

As a specimen of their treasonable and cruel designs, your
honorable {126} body are referred to said circular, of which the
following is but a short extract,--namely: "We the undersigned
citizens of Jackson county, believing that an important crisis
is at hand, as regards our civil society, in consequence of a
pretended religious sect of people that have settled and are still
settling in our county, styling themselves Mormons, and intending
as we do to rid our society, 'peaceably if we can, forcibly if
we must;' and believing as we do that the arm of the civil law
does not afford us a guarantee, or at least a sufficient one,
against the evils which are now inflicted upon us, and seem to be
increasing by the said religious sect, deem it expedient and of the
highest importance to form ourselves into a company for the better
and easier accomplishment of our purpose."

This document was closed in the following words--"We therefore
agree that, after timely warning, and receiving an adequate
compensation for what little property they cannot take with them,
they refuse to leave us in peace, as they found us, we agree to use
such means as may be sufficient to remove them; and to that end we
each pledge to each other our bodily powers, our lives, fortunes,
and sacred honors."

To this unconstitutional document were attached the names of nearly
every officer in the county, together with the names of hundreds of
others.

It was by this band of murderers that your memorialists, in the
year 1833, were plundered of their property and robbed of their
peaceable homes. It was by them that their fields were laid waste,
their houses burned, and their men, women, and children, to the
number of about twelve hundred persons, banished as exiles from the
county, while others were cruelly murdered by their hands.

Second: After our expulsion from Jackson county, we settled in
Clay county, on the opposite side of the Missouri river, where we
purchased lands both from the old settlers and from the [U. S.]
Land Office: but soon we were again violently threatened by mobs,
and obliged to leave our homes, and seek out a new location.

Third: Our next settlement was in Caldwell county, where we
purchased the most of the land in said county, beside a part of the
lands in Daviess and Carroll counties. These counties were almost
entirely in a wild and uncultivated state; but, by the persevering
industry of our citizens, large and extensive farms were opened in
every direction, well stocked with numerous flocks and herds. We
also commenced settlements in several other counties of the state,
and once more confidently hoped to enjoy the hard-earned fruits of
our labor unmolested.

But our hopes were soon blasted. The cruel and murderous spirit
which first began to manifest itself in the constituted authorities
and inhabitants of Jackson county, and afterwards in Clay and the
surrounding {127} counties, receiving no check either from the
civil or military power of the state, had in the meantime taken
courage, and boldly and fearlessly spread its contaminating and
treasonable influence into every department of the government
of said state. Lieutenant-Governor Boggs, a resident of Jackson
county, who acted a conspicuous part in our expulsion from said
county, instead of being tried for treason and rebellion against
the Constitution, and suffering the just penalty of his crimes, was
actually elected governor; and placed in the executive chair.

Thus the inhabitants of the State were greatly encouraged to renew
with redoubled fury, their unlawful attacks upon our defenseless
settlements. Men, women, and children were driven away in every
direction before their merciless persecutors, robbed of their
possessions, their property, their provisions, and their all, cast
forth upon the bleak, snowy prairies, houseless and unprotected.
Many sank down and expired under their accumulated sufferings,
while others, after enduring hunger and the severities of the
season, suffering all but death, arrived in Caldwell county, to
which place they were driven from all the surrounding counties,
only to witness a still more heart-rending scene.

In vain had we appealed to the constituted authorities of Missouri
for protection and redress of our former grievances. In vain we
now stretched out our hands and appealed as the citizens of this
great republic to the sympathies, to the justice, and magnanimity
of those in power. In vain we implored again and again at the feet
of Governor Boggs, our former persecutor, for aid and protection
against the ravages and murders now inflicted upon our defenseless
and unoffending citizens. The cry of American citizens, already
twice driven and deprived of liberty, could not penetrate their
adamantine hearts.

The Governor, instead of sending us aid, issued a proclamation for
our extermination and banishment, ordered out the forces of the
State, placed them under the command of General Clark, who, to
execute these exterminating orders, marched several thousand troops
into our settlements in Caldwell county, where, unrestrained by
fear of law or justice, and urged on by the highest authority of
the state, they laid waste our fields of corn, shot down our cattle
and hogs for sport, burned our dwellings, inhumanly butchered
some eighteen or twenty defenseless citizens, dragged from their
hiding-places little children, and placing the muzzles of their
guns to their heads, shot them [such acts being accompanied] with
the most horrid oaths and imprecations.

An aged hero and patriot of the Revolution, who served under
General Washington, while in the act of pleading for quarter, was
cruelly murdered and hewed in pieces with an old corn cutter;
and in addition to all these savage acts of barbarity, they
forcibly dragged virtuous and {128} inoffensive females from their
dwellings, bound them upon benches used for public worship, where
they in great numbers ravished them in the most brutal manner.

Some fifty or sixty of the citizens were thrust into prisons and
dungeons, where, bound in chains, they were fed on human flesh,
while their families and some fifteen thousand others were at the
point of the bayonet, forcibly expelled from the State.

In the meantime, to pay the expenses of these horrid outrages, they
confiscated our property, and robbed us of all our possessions.

Before our final expulsion, with a faint and lingering hope we
petitioned the State legislature then in session, unwilling to
believe that the virtue and patriotism of the venerable fathers
of the Revolution had fled from the bosoms of their illustrious
descendants--unwilling to believe that American citizens could
appeal in vain for a restoration of liberty cruelly wrested from
them by cruel tyrants. But in the language of our noble ancestors,
"our repeated petitions were only answered by repeated injuries."

The legislature, instead of hearing the cries of 15,000
suffering, bleeding, unoffending citizens, sanctioned and sealed
the unconstitutional acts of the governor and his troops,
by appropriating 200,000 dollars to defray the expenses of
exterminating us from the State. No friendly arm was stretched out
to protect us. The last ray of hope for redress in that State was
now entirely extinguished. We saw no other alternative but to bow
down our necks and wear the cruel yoke of oppression, and quietly
and submissively suffer ourselves to be banished as exiles from our
possessions, our property, and our sacred homes, or otherwise see
our wives and children coldly butchered and murdered by tyrants in
power.

Fourth. Our next permanent settlement was in the land of our
exile, the State of Illinois, in the spring of 1839; but even here
we are not secure from our relentless persecutor, the State of
Missouri. Not satisfied in having drenched her soil in the blood
of innocence, and expelling us from her borders, she pursues her
unfortunate victims into banishment, seizing upon and kidnapping
them in their defenseless moments, dragging them across the
Mississippi river, upon their inhospitable shores, there they are
tortured, whipped, immured in dungeons, and finally hung [as a
means of torture, but not unto death] by the neck without any legal
process what ever.

We have memorialized the former Executive of this State, Governor
Carlin, upon these lawless outrages committed upon our citizens;
but he rendered us no protection. Missouri, receiving no check in
her murderous career, continues her depredations, again and again
kidnapping {129} our citizens and robbing us of our property;
while others, who fortunately survived the execution of her bloody
edicts, are again and again demanded by the Executive of that
State, on pretense of some crime said to have been committed by
them during the exterminating expedition against our people.

As an instance, General Joseph Smith, one of your memorialists,
has been three times demanded, tried, and acquitted by the courts
of this State, upon investigation under writs of _habeas corpus_,
once by the United States Court for the District of Illinois, again
by the Circuit Court of the State of Illinois, and lastly by the
Municipal Court of the City of Nauvoo, when at the same time a
_nolle prosequi_ had been entered by the courts of Missouri upon
all the cases of that State against Joseph Smith and others.

Thus the said Joseph Smith has been several times tried for the
same alleged offense, put in jeopardy of life and limb, contrary
to the fifth article of the amendments to the Constitution of the
United States; and thus we have been continually harassed and
robbed of our money to defray the expenses of these vexatious
prosecutions. And what at the present time seems to be still more
alarming, is the hostility manifested by some of the authorities
and citizens of this State [Illinois.] Conventions have been
called, inflammatory speeches made, and many unlawful and
unconstitutional resolutions adopted to deprive us of our rights,
our liberties, and the peaceable enjoyment of our possessions.

From the present hostile aspect, and from bitter experience in
the State of Missouri, it is greatly feared lest the barbarous
scenes acted in that State will be re-acted in this. If Missouri
goes unpunished, others will be greatly encouraged to follow her
murderous examples.

The afflictions of your memorialists have already been
overwhelming--too much for humanity, too much for American citizens
to endure without complaint. We have groaned under the iron hand
of tyranny and oppression these many years. We have been robbed of
our property to the amount of two millions of dollars. We have been
hunted as wild beasts of the forest. We have seen our aged fathers
who fought in the Revolution and our innocent children alike
slaughtered by our persecutors; we have seen the fair daughters
of American citizens insulted and abused in the most inhuman
manner; and finally we have seen fifteen thousand souls--men, women
and children, driven by force of arms during the severities of
the winter from their sacred homes and firesides, penniless and
unprotected, to a land of strangers.

Under all these afflicting circumstances, we imploringly stretch
forth {130} our hands towards the highest councils of our nation,
and humbly appeal to the illustrious Senators and Representatives
of a great and free people for redress and protection.

Hear, O hear the petitioning voice of many thousands of American
citizens, who now groan in exile on Columbia's free soil! Hear, O
hear the weeping and bitter lamentations of widows and orphans,
whose husbands and fathers have been cruelly martyred in the land
where the proud eagle exulting soars! Let it not be recorded in the
archives of the nations that Columbia's exiles sought protection
and redress at your hands, but sought it in vain. It is in your
power to save us, our wives, and our children from a repetition
of the bloodthirsty scenes of Missouri, and greatly relieve the
fears of a persecuted and injured people, by ordaining for their
protection the following ordinance, namely--

AN ORDINANCE

_For the protection of the people styled the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, residing on the western borders of the State
of Illinois._

PREAMBLE.

Whereas the State of Missouri at sundry times has
unconstitutionally deprived a certain portion of her citizens
(called "Mormons,") of their rights, property, lands, and even of
their lives:

And whereas, in the years 1838 and 1839 the said State of Missouri
with impunity did illegally and inhumanly exile and banish for ever
from her limits and jurisdiction all the said citizens (called
"Mormons,") that remained alive.

And whereas, after being hospitably received by the citizens of
Illinois, the said State of Illinois did grant, enact, and charter
for the benefit and convenience of the said exiled "Mormons" as
follows:--

[Here in the original document is inserted the city charter of Nauvoo already published, Vol. IV, pp 239-249.]

And whereas, by the 10th article of the Constitution of the
United States as amended--"Art. 10. The powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to
the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the
people;" and whereas, according to the fourth article and section
second, "The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States:" and
whereas, according to the second paragraph of the {131} third
section of said Constitution, "The Congress shall have power to
dispose of and make the needful rules and regulations respecting
territory;" and whereas the said Congress has the power to protect
each state against invasion and insurrection: and whereas most of
the inhabitants of the city of Nauvoo are exiles from the State
of Missouri: and whereas most of the lands owned in the State of
Missouri were purchased from the United States, and patented by
the United States to the amount of more than $200,000 worth: and
whereas the United States are bound to clear the title and protect
it: and whereas the said exiles or expelled "Mormons" have lost in
property and damages about two millions of dollars: and whereas the
said State of Missouri continues her ravages, persecutions, and
plunderings, by kidnapping said exiles from Illinois, and by other
depredations:

Now, therefore, to show the fatherly care of the United States,
to ratify the said charter, to protect the said exiles from mob
violence, and shield them in their rights:--

Section 1. Be it ordained by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, that all the rights, powers, privileges, and immunities
belonging to Territories, and not repugnant to the Constitution
of the United States, are hereby granted and secured to the
inhabitants of the city of Nauvoo, in addition to the spirit,
letter, meaning, and provisions of the afore-mentioned charter, or
act of incorporation from the State of Illinois, until the State
of Missouri restores to those exiled citizens the lands, rights,
privileges, property, and damage for all losses.