Part 32 (1/2)
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: