USA > Utah > History of Utah > Part 16
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The affair created considerable excitement at Nauvoo and throughout Hancock County; the general feeling of all classes, Mor- mon and non-Mormon, being against the Missourians. Governor Carlin, in response to popular demand, called upon Missouri to deliver up the kidnappers. It was then that Governor Boggs issued his requisition for Joseph Smith and his brethren, most of whom had escaped from captivity in that State nearly eighteen months before.
Possibly there was more than retaliation in this act of Governor Boggs. The conduct of Missouri in the bloody crusade inaugurated by her Executive against her Mormon citizens, had been widely con- demned, and the charges alleged against the Saints in justification of that conduct were generally disbelieved. The fact that many months had passed since the escape of the Mormon leaders, during which no effort had been made to retake them, was being cited in proof of the falsity of those charges. Governor Boggs, therefore, after a Rip Van Winkle sleep of seventeen months, suddenly wakes up and returns to the assault, hoping perhaps to vindicate, or at least render consistent his former course, and rescue by a coup d'etat what remains of his besmirched and shattered reputation.
Besides, the state election is approaching, and it may be that he hopes for another term of office. What more brilliant a bribe, what more tempting a bait for ballots, in Mormon-hating Missouri, than Joseph Smith the Mormon leader in chains?
Many non-Mormon citizens of Illinois stoutly opposed the delivery of the persons named, even if guilty, to be dealt with by officials who had sanctioned and even assisted in the butchery, wholesale robbery and expulsion of their innocent co-religionists. But many did not believe them guilty. Said the Quincy Whig, a prominent journal of that period: "We repeat, Smith and Rigdon should not be given up. The law is made to secure the
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punishment of the guilty, and not to sacrifice the innocent. Compliance on the part of Governor Carlin would be to deliver them, not to be tried for crime, but to be punished without crime."
Other papers justified the Governor in observing the forms of law usual in such cases, and issuing his requisition for the arrest and delivery of the Mormon leaders to the officers of Missouri.
Carlin's writ was returned to him unserved; the sheriff of Han- cock County, entrusted with its service, not being able to find the persons wanted. Having no faith in Missouri justice, like the wise man in the proverb they had probably " foreseen the evil" and "hid themselves."
Despite this unpleasant episode, fortune continued to rain favors upon the Mormons in Illinois. During the winter of 1840-41 the Legislature granted the Charter of the City of Nauvoo, one of the most liberal charters ever bestowed upon a municipality. It was planned by the Prophet and devised, as he said, "on principles so broad that any honest man might dwell secure under its protective influence without distinction of sect or party."
A few sections of the Charter are here inserted :
Sec. 4. There shall be a City Council to consist of Mayor, four Aldermen and nine Councilors, who shall have the qualifications of electors of said city, and shall be chosen by the qualified voters thereof, and shall hold their offices for two years, and until their successors shall be elected and qualified. The City Council shall judge of the qualifications, elections and returns of their own members, and a majority of them shall form a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and compel the attendance of absent members, under such penalties as may be prescribed by ordinance.
Sec. 5. The Mayor, Aldermen and Councilors, before entering upon the duties of their offices, shall take and subscribe an oath or affirmation, that they will support the Constitution of the United States and of this State, and that they will well and truly per- form the duties of their offices to the best of their skill and abilities.
Sec. 11. The City Council shall have power and authority to make, ordain, estab- lish and execute all such ordinances, not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States or of this State, as they may deem necessary for the benefit, peace, good order, regulation, convenience and cleanliness of said city; for the protection of property therein from destruction by fire or otherwise, and for the health and happiness thereof; they shall have power to fill all vacancies that may happen by death, resignation or removal, in any of the oflices herein made elective; to fix and establish all the fees of the officers of said corpor- ation not herein established ; to impose such fines not exceeding one hundred dollars for
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each offense, as they may deem just, for refusing to accept any office in or under the cor- poration, or for misconduct therein; to divide the city into wards; to add to the number of Aldermen and Councilors, and apportion them among the several wards as may be most just and conducive to the interests of the city.
Sec. 13. The City Council shall have exclusive power within the city, by ordinance to license, regulate and restrain the keeping of ferries ; to regulate the police ot the city; to impose fines, forfeitures and penalties for the breach of any ordinance, and provide for the recovery of such fines and forfeitures, and the enforcement of such penalties, and to pass such ordinances as may be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers specified in this act : Provided, Such ordinances are not repugnant to the Constitu- tion of the United States or of this State ; and in fine, to exercise such other legislative powers as are conferred on the City Council of the city of Springfield, by an act entitled "An act to incorporate the city of Springfield," approved February third, one thousand eight hundred and forty.
Sec. 16. The Mayor and Aldermen shall be conservators of the peace within the limits of said city, and shall have all the powers of Justices of the Peace therein, both in civil and criminal cases, arising under the laws of the State; they shall, as Justices of the Peace within the limits of said city, perform the same duties, be governed by the same laws, give the same bonds and security as other Justices of the Peace, and be commis- sioned as Justices of the Peace in and for said city by the Governor.
Sec. 17. The Mayor shall have exclusive jurisdiction in all cases arising under the ordinances of the corporation, and shall issue such process as may be necessary to carry said ordinances into execution and effect ; appeals may be had from any decision or judg- ment of said Mayor or Aldermen, arising under the city ordinances, to the Municipal Court, under such regulations as may be presented by ordinance, which Court shall be composed of the Mayor, or Chief Justice, and the Aldermen as Associate Justices, and from the final judgment of the Municipal Court to the Circuit Court of Hancock County, in the same manner as appeals are taken from the judgments of Justices of the Peace : Provided, That the parties litigant shall have a right to a trial by a jury of twelve men in all cases before the Municipal Court. The Municipal Court shall have power to grant writs of habeas corpus in all cases arising under the ordinances of the City Council.
Sec. 19. All processes issued by the Mayor, Aldermen or Municipal Court shall be directed to the Marshal, and in the execution thereof he shall be governed by the same laws as are or may be prescribed for the direction and compensation of constables in simi- lar cases. The Marshal shall also perform such other duties as may be required of him under the ordinances of said city, and shall be the principal ministerial officer.
Sec. 24. The City Council may establish and organize an institution of learning within the limits of the city for the teaching of the arts, sciences and learned professions, to be called the "University of the City of Nauvoo:" which institution shall be under the control and management of a Board of Trustees, consisting of a Chancellor, Registrar. and twenty-three Regents. which Board shall thereafter be a body corporate and politic. with perpetual succession, by the name of the " Chancellor and Regents of the University of the City of Nauvoo," and shall have full power to pass, ordain, establish and execute
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all such laws and ordinances as they may consider for the welfare and prosperity of said University, its officers and students ; Provided, That the said laws and ordinances shall not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States or of this State ; and, Provided, also, That the Trustees shall at all times be appointed by the City Council, and shall have all the powers and privileges for the advancement of the cause of education which appertain to the trustees of any other college or university of this State.
Sec. 25. The City Council may organize the inhabitants of said city subject to mili- tary duty into a body of independent military men, to be called the "Nauvoo Legion," the court-martial of which shall be composed of the commissioned officers of said Legion, and constitute the law-making department, with full powers and authority to make, ordain, establish and execute, all such laws and ordinances, as may be considered necessary for the benefit, government and regulation of said Legion ; Provided, Said court-martial shall pass no law or act repugnant to or inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States or of this State ; and Provided, also, That the officers of the Legion shall he commissioned by the Governor of the State. The said Legion shall perform the same amount of mili- tary duty as is now or may be hereafter required of the regular militia of the State, and shall be at the disposal of the Mayor in executing the laws and ordinances of the City Corporation, and the laws of the State, and at the disposal of the Governor for the public defense and the execution of the laws of the State, or of the United States, and shall be entitled to their proportion of the public arms ; and, Provided, also, That said Legion shall be exempt from all other military duty.
Having passed both houses of the Legislative Assembly, the Charter of Nauvoo was signed by Governor Carlin and certified by Secretary Douglas on the 16th of December. It went into effect February 1st, 1841.
On that day occurred the first city election of Nauvoo, resulting in the choice of the following named officers : Mayor, John C. Ben- nett ; Aldermen, William Marks, Samuel H. Smith, Daniel H. Wells and Newel K. Whitney ; Councilors, Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Charles C. Rich, John T. Barnett, Wilson Law, Don Carlos Smith, John P. Greene and Vinson Knight.
Among the first bills for ordinances presented to the city coun- cil, was one to prohibit the sale of liquor at retail within the corpor- ate limits, and others providing for the freedom of all religious sects and of all peaceable public meetings within the city. These bills were presented by the Prophet, and ordinances passed accordingly. It was the purpose of the Saints, who greatly predominated at Nauvoo, to make of it a strictly moral and free city, as free from vice
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as from tyranny, a delight at once to its inhabitants and to the stranger within its gates.
The municipal election was followed by the organization of the University and of the Nauvoo Legion, as provided for in the Charter. At the military election, held on the 4th of February, Joseph Smith was chosen Lieutenant-General, John C. Bennett, Major-General, and Wilson Law and Don Carlos Smith, Brigadier-Generals of the Legion. It was modeled after the Roman legion, and consisted originally of six companies, divided into two brigades or cohorts. Subsequently other citizens of Hancock County joined the Legion, and it finally aggregated several thousand troops.
The Nauvoo University, for which a suitable edifice was to be erected, was officered as follows : Chancellor, John C. Bennett ; Reg- istrar, William Law; Regents, Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith, William Marks, Samuel H. Smith, Daniel H. Wells, Newel K. Whitney, Charles C. Rich, John T. Barnett, Wilson Law, John P. Greene, Vinson Knight, Isaac Galland, Elias Higbee, Robert D. Foster, James Adams, Samuel Bennett, Ebenezer Robinson, John Snider, George Miller, Lenos M. Knight, John Taylor and Heber C. Kimball. Its faculty included the names of Sidney Rigdon, Orson Pratt, Orson Spencer and James Kelly; the latter two college graduates. Four common school wards, with three wardens to each, were connected with the University.
On January 24th of that year, a change had taken place in the personnel of the Church Presidency. Hyrum Smith, second coun- selor to the Prophet, having been called to succeed his deceased sire as Patriarch of the Church, William Law was chosen to fill the vacancy thus created in the Presidency. A few days later, Joseph Smith was chosen Trustee-in-Trust for the Church, to hold the legal title to its property agreeable to the laws of Illinois. The succession to this office was vested in the First Presidency. It was perpetuated for many years after the Mormons removed to Utah.
April 6th, 1841. A general conference convened this day at the chief city of the Saints. During the morning hours the corner stones
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of the Nauvoo Temple were laid and dedicated. On the third day of the conference, Lyman Wight was ordained an Apostle to fill a vacancy which had for some time existed in the council of the Twelve.
Apropos of the Apostles, let us now briefly advert to them and their mission abroad. After leaving Illinois, in the fall of 1839, the majority of the Twelve made their way to Kirtland, where a few families of Saints yet resided. Thence they journeyed to New York, preaching by the way and laboring for some time in that city and its vicinity. In the latter part of December, John Taylor, Wilford Wood- ruff, Hiram Clark and Theodore Turley sailed for Liverpool on board the Oxford. Three months later, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, George A. Smith and Reuben Hedlock followed in their wake on the Patrick Henry.
Landing at Liverpool on the 6th of April. 1840, President Young and his party there found Apostle Taylor, with about thirty converts. He and his party had arrived at that port on the 11th of January. They were there welcomed by Mr. George Cannon, Apostle Taylor's brother-in-law, who resided at Liverpool. He was the father of George Q. Cannon, then a mere lad, and not yet connected with the cause in which he was destined to play, in after years, so prominent a part. Visiting Preston, Apostle Taylor had returned with Joseph Fielding to Liverpool, while Elders Woodruff and Turley had gone into Staffordshire, and Hiram Clark to Manchester. In that great town a branch of the Church had previously been built up by Elder William Clayton.
Immediately upon the arrival of President Young, a conference of the British Saints was called to convene at Preston on the 14th of April. That day Willard Richards was ordained to the Apostleship. It was decided to send for a score or more of the Seventies, to assist the Apostles in their ministry; to publish a hymn book for the use of the Saints, and to establish at Manchester a monthly periodical to be called The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star .*
*The first number of the Star, edited by Parley P. Pratt, appeared in May, 1840. It is now a weekly issue and is published at Liverpool.
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The Apostles and Elders then separated and went preaching into various parts of Great Britain. Their experience was a repetition of the success of Heber C. Kimball and his confreres in that land a few years before. The fruits of Apostle Woodruff's labors in Stafford- shire and Herefordshire were especially abundant. He baptized hun- dreds, including over forty preachers of the sect known as United Brethren. Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and parts of England yet unvisited by the Elders, were all penetrated and many converts made of each nationality. The foundations for future mis- sionary success, in the organization of conferences, the establish- ment of a publishing house and a shipping agency were now laid broad and permanently.
On June 6th, 1840, a company of forty-one Latter-day Saints- the first to emigrate from a foreign land, sailed from Liverpool on the ship Britannia, bound for Nauvoo, via New York. John Moon had charge of this company. About three months later two hundred more, in charge of Theodore Turley and William Clayton, were carried over in the North America. Several other companies sailed in 1841, the last one for that year going to Nauvoo by way of New Orleans, which then became the regular route. Each succeeding year added its quota ; the work of proselyting more than keeping pace with the con- tinuous drain of emigration. It is estimated that prior to the settle- ment of Utah nearly five thousand British converts to Mormonism had landed in America.
Thus was set in motion that great tide of immigration which, swelling the numbers of the Saints in the Mississippi Valley, peopled in later years with the skilled mechanics and hardy yeomanry of Britain, Scandinavia and other European countries, the mountain valleys of Utah ; mingling their brave blood-brave to forsake native land, sunder all earthly ties and endure the scorn and odium heaped ever upon the adherents of an unpopular faith-with the life-stream of a race equally heroic, cradled in the lap of liberty. The result, the bone and sinew, character and intelligence of Utah to-day,-the promise of the present to the future.
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When the Apostles landed at Liverpool, in April, 1840, the Church in Great Britain numbered less than two thousand souls. Twelve months later, when most of them returned to America, that figure had been more than trebled. Said Brigham Young : " It truly seems a miracle to look upon the contrast between our landing and departing at Liverpool. We landed in the spring of 1840, as strangers in a strange land, and penniless ; but through the mercy of God we have gained many friends, established churches in almost every noted town and city of Great Britain ; baptized between seven and eight thousand souls, printed five thousand Books of Mormon, three thousand hymn books, twenty-five hundred volumes of the Millennial Star and fifty thousand tracts ; emigrated to Zion one thou- sand souls, established a permanent shipping agency, which will be a great blessing to the Saints, and have left sown in the hearts of thousands the seed of eternal life. And yet we have lacked nothing to eat, drink or wear."
Parley P. Pratt was left by his brethren to preside over the British Mission. Orson Hyde was in Palestine. The remainder of the Apostles who had gone abroad now returned home, some of them reaching Nauvoo early in July, 1841.
Anticipating their arrival by several weeks, our story now returns to the latter part of May. As already shown, it was a part of the plan of the Mormon leader, besides building up a central Stake of Zion at Nauvoo, to establish other stakes in that vicinity. Among these, which had now been organized for several months, were those of Ramus and Lima in Hancock County, Quincy and Mount Hope in Adams County, Geneva in Morgan County, and Zarahemla in Lee County, Iowa. One of the stake presidency at Quincy was Ezra T. Benson, afterwards an Apostle and a prominent Utah pioneer.
The stake at Kirtland, Ohio, had lately been reorganized, with Almon W. Babbitt, Lester Brooks and Zebedee Coltrin as its presi- dency. All or most of the stakes were being built up rapidly by the gathering of the Saints from various parts, including those from abroad.
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On the 24th of May, 1841, President Smith announced through the Times and Seasons the discontinuance of all the stakes outside of Hancock County, Illinois, and Lee County, Iowa, and called upon the Saints residing in other parts " to make preparations to come in with- out delay." Said he: "This is important, and should be attended to by all who feel an interest in the prosperity of this, the corner stone of Zion. Here the temple must be raised, the university be built, and other edifices erected which are necessary for the great work of the last days; and which can only be done by a concentration of energy and enterprise." To this call the Saints responded with alacrity, and came pouring in from all parts outside the two counties mentioned, to engage in the work of building up and beautifying "the corner stone of Zion."
To the followers of the Prophet, as well as to the Prophet him- self, this was all that the call really meant. Temple-building, with the Saints, we need scarcely inform the reader, amounts to what might be termed a divine passion ; a work done by Time for Eternity. The sacred edifices they rear, with their solemn ceremonies and ordinances, represent to them so many links literally binding earth to heaven. No work in their estimation is so important,-not even their proselyting labors among the nations. Next to their religious mission of preaching, proselyting, and administering in their temples for the salvation of the living and the dead, is their penchant for founding institutions of learning. This fact Mormon history abundantly verifies, in spite of all that has been said and thought to the contrary. This explains in part that ready obedience,- wrong- fully supposed to be a mere servile yielding to the dictum of a despot,-manifested by the Saints to the word and will of their leader. He was simply inviting them to engage in the work most congenial to their souls ; and this, as we have said, was all that the call really meant.
But to the politicians it meant more,-or rather, meant some- thing entirely different. It was construed by them as a shrewd political maneuver, foreshadowing the ultimate domination of Han-
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cock County by the Mormons, and the relegation to the rear, as a hopeless minority, of the combined forces of Whigs, Democrats and whatever else, in spite of all that could be done to hinder. It was believed, in short, to be a "colonizing" scheme, a trick to increase and render supreme the local Mormon vote. Already jealous of the power wielded by the Saints at the polls, and professing to "view with alarm" the prospective increase of that power by means of the proposed concentration, some of the politicians now set about organizing in Hancock County a new party, the avowed object of which was to oppose and counteract the political influence of the Mormons in county and in state.
Public meetings to discuss the question were held at various points, and resolutions expressive of the anti-Mormon feeling passed by those assembled. The result was the rise of the Anti-Mormon Party, and the origin of the term "anti-Mormon," thenceforth in vogue in Illinois politics. Much bitterness was engendered by this party, not only against the Mormons, whom they finally compelled to leave the State, but against all who affiliated with or in any way befriended them. Such were denominated Jack-Mormons. The hatred of the Anti-Mormons for the Mormons, despite their resolutions and protestations to the contrary, expressed itself not only in politics, but in everything else, social, commercial and religious.
Of course there were exceptions to this rule ; Joseph Smith him- self styled some of the Anti-Mormons "good fellows." But they were mixed in politics,-which like adversity " makes strange bed- fellows,"-with many characters that were positively disreputable. The party as a whole probably answered, far better than did Bacon, Pope's caustic description of England's great Lord Chan- cellor,-" the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind."
The Anti-Mormon Party of Illinois was made up of all parties. Anyone with a grievance against the Saints,-from the apostate, expelled from the Church for adultery, to the common thief and counterfeiter. convicted and punished at Nauvoo for breaking the city
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ordinances,-forthwith became an anti-Mormon. Whigs and Demo- crats then, as Republicans and Democrats since, united to oppose and destroy the political power of the Mormons.
Whether or not the anti-Mormons conspired about this time with the Executive of Illinois, to effect a speedier solution of the problem than seemed possible by means of ordinary methods,-even to remove the Mormon leader from the midst of his people, thus paralyzing the gathering movement in progress,-may never be known. But the arrest of the Prophet, a few weeks after his procla- mation had gone forth, on the identical writ first issued by Governor Boggs in September, 1840, with the part played by Governor Carlin in bringing about that arrest, almost warrants the suspicion. It occurred as follows: About the 4th of June, 1841, Joseph Smith, having accompanied as far as Quincy his brother Hyrum and William Law, who were starting east upon a mission, called upon Governor Carlin at his residence in that place. He was received with marked kindness and respect. In the extended interview which followed between the Governor and his visitor, nothing whatever was said of the writ formerly issued by Missouri, concerning which all excitement had long since abated. Taking leave of his Excellency, the Prophet set out for Nauvoo. He had not gone far when he was overtaken and arrested by Sheriff King of Adams County, and a posse, whom he believed the Governor had sent after him. Among them was an officer from Missouri, the bearer of the writ, who gloated exultingly over the prisoner and the prospect of carrying him back to his former captivity.
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