CLAY COUNTY SORROWFULLY BIDS THE SAINTS TO MIGRATE INTO THE WILDERNESS—JOSEPH SENDS A DIGNIFIED LETTER TO THE CITIZENS— CONTINUANCE OF MOB AUTOCRACY IN JACKSON—DUNKLIN'S HELPLESSNESS—THE SAINTS FORM THE NEW COUNTY OF CALDWELL AND LAY OUT FAR WEST.
They were eastern men, whose manners, habits, customs, and even dialect, are essentially different from our own. They are non-slaveholders, and opposed to slavery, which in this peculiar period, when Abolitionism has reared its deformed and haggard visage in our land, is well calculated to excite deep and abiding prejudices in any community where slavery is tolerated and protected.
This was the complaint raised against the Saints in Clay County on the 29th day of June, 1836, by a mass meeting of leading citizens who assembled at Liberty.
It will be remembered that when the mob had accomplished its awful work in Jackson County, the persecuted Saints had sought and found a temporary refuge in Clay. During all the intervening time of nearly three years, constant efforts had been made to secure a restoration of the Saints to their lawful possessions at Independence and vicinity; but all in vain, for the mob power triumphed over law, and murderous rapine still trampled upon law and justice.
Clay County had been the only one to show any available hospitality toward the plundered ones. But now the time had come when a feeling of self-preservation, as they called it, prompted the citizens of even this charitable region to send the Saints forth to renewed wandering.
The measures adopted were not intentionally cruel; it is pitiable even at this hour to read the resolutions of the mass meeting which decreed this exile; they show that the men who forced them were sinning against their own sense of justice, but for the sake of their own families and property.
At the meeting at Liberty, John Bird was chosen chairman, and John F. Doherty secretary. The recorded minutes of that assemblage state that the reasons given in the opening of this chapter, with other similar causes, "have raised a feeling of hostility" against the Saints "that the first spark might ignite into all the horrors and desolations of a civil war, the worst evil that could befall any country."
Continuing, the document says:
We therefore feel it our duty to come forward, as mediators, and use every means in our power to prevent the occurrence of so great an evil. As the most efficacious means to arrest the evil, we urge on the Mormons to use every means to put an immediate stop to the emigration of their people to this country. We earnestly urge them to seek some other abiding place, where the manners, the habits and customs of the people will be more consonant with their own.
For this purpose we would advise them to explore the territory of Wisconsin. This country is peculiarly suited to their condition and to their wants. It is almost entirely unsettled; they can procure large bodies of land together, where there are no settlements, and none to interfere with them. It is a territory in which slavery is prohibited, and it is settled entirely with emigrants from the north and east.
The religious tenets of this people are so different from the present churches of the age, that they always have, and always will excite deep prejudices against them in any populous country where they may locate. We, therefore, in a spirit of frank and friendly kindness, do advise them to seek a home where they may obtain large and separate bodies of land, and have a community of their own. We further say to them, if they regard their own safety and welfare, if they regard the welfare of their families, their wives and children, they will ponder with deep and solemn reflection on this friendly admonition.
If they have one spark of gratitude, they will not willingly plunge a people into civil war, who held out to them the friendly hand of assistance in that hour of dark distress, when there were few to say, God save them. We can only say to them, if they still persist in the blind course they have heretofore followed in flooding the country with their people, that we fear and firmly believe that an immediate civil war is the inevitable consequence. We know that there is not one among us who thirsts for the blood of that people.
We do not contend that we have the least right, under the Constitution and laws of the country, to expel them by force. But we would indeed be blind, if we did not foresee that the first blow that is struck, at this moment of deep excitement, must and will speedily involve every individual in a war, bearing ruin, woe and desolation in its course. It matters but little how, where, or by whom, the war may begin, when the work of destruction commences, we must all be borne onward by the storm, or crushed beneath its fury. In a civil war, when our home is the theatre on which it is fought, there can be no neutrals; let our opinions be what they may, we must fight in self-defense.
We want nothing, we ask nothing, we would have nothing from this people, we only ask them, for their own safety, and for ours, to take the least of two evils. Most of them are destitute of land, have but little property, are late emigrants to this country, without relations, friends, or endearing ties, to bind them to this land. At the risk of such imminent peril to them and to us, we request them to leave us, when their crops are gathered, their business settled, and they have made every suitable preparation to remove. Those who have forty acres of land, we are willing should remain until they can dispose of it without loss, if it should require years. But we urge, most strongly urge, that emigration cease, and cease immediately, as nothing else can or will allay for a moment, the deep excitement that is now unhappily agitating this community.
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That if the Mormons agree to these propositions, we will use every means in our power to allay the excitement among our own citizens, and to get them to await the result of these things.
That it is the opinion of this meeting that the recent emigration among the Mormons should take measures to leave this county immediately, as they have no crops on hand, and nothing to lose by continuing their journey to some more friendly land.
This paper had the unanimous support of the meeting, and when this decree, mingling the sorrow of humane men with the cruel necessity of what seemed self-preservation, was entered, the meeting adjourned for three days. In the meantime a committee named in the resolution was to confer with the leaders of the Saints and obtain their reply.
When the Prophet heard of this new mandate of banishment he was on the eve of starting from Kirtland upon his journey to the east; but before going he forwarded a letter signed by himself, his counselors, his brother Hyrum, and Oliver Cowdery, to the committee of citizens at Liberty entrusted with the promulgation of the order of exile, in which letter the following passages occur:
Under existing circumstances, while rumor is afloat with her accustomed cunning, and while public opinion is fast setting, like a flood-tide against the members of said Church, we cannot but admire the candor with which your preamble and resolutions were clothed, as presented to the meeting of the citizens of Clay County, on the 29th of June last. Though, as you expressed in your report to said meeting—"We do not contend that we have the least right, under the constitution and laws of the country, to expel them by force,"—yet communities may be, at times, unexpectedly thrown into a situation, when wisdom, prudence, and that first item in nature's law, self-defense, would dictate that the responsible and influential part should step forward and guide the public mind in a course to save difficulty, preserve rights, and spare the innocent blood from staining that soil so dearly purchased with the fortunes and lives of our fathers. And as you have come forward as "mediators," to prevent the effusion of blood, and save disasters consequent upon civil war, we take this opportunity to present to you, though strangers, and through you, if you wish, to the people of Clay County, our heartfelt gratitude for every kindness rendered our friends in affliction, when driven from their peaceful homes, and to yourselves, also, for the prudent course in the present excited state of your community. But, in doing this, justice to ourselves, as communicants of that Church to which our friends belong, and duty towards them as acquaintances and former fellow citizens, require us to say something to exonerate them from the foul charges brought against them, to deprive them of their constitutional privileges, and drive them from the face of society:
They have been charged in consequence of the whims and vain notions of some few uninformed, with claiming that upper country, and that ere long they were to possess it, at all hazards, and in defiance of all consequences. This is unjust and far from a foundation in truth. A thing not expected, not looked for, not desired by this society, as a people, and where the idea could have originated is unknown to us. We do not, neither did we ever insinuate a thing of this kind, or hear it from the leading men of the society, now in your country. There is nothing in our religious faith to warrant it, but on the contrary, the most strict injunctions to live in obedience to the laws, and follow peace with all men. And we doubt not, but a recurrence to the Jackson County difficulties, with our friends, will fully satisfy you, that at least, heretofore, such has been the course followed by them. That instead of fighting for their own rights, they have sacrificed them for a season, to wait the redress guaranteed in the law, and so anxiously looked for at a time distant from this. We have been, and are still, clearly under the conviction, that had our friends been disposed, they might have maintained their possessions in Jackson County. They might have resorted to the same barbarous means with their neighbors, throwing down dwellings, threatening lives, driving innocent women and children from their homes, and thereby have annoyed their enemies equally, at least—but this to their credit, and which must ever remain upon the pages of time, to their honor—they did not. They had possessions, they had homes, they had sacred rights, and more still, they had helpless, harmless innocence, with an approving conscience that they had violated no law of their country or their God, to urge them forward—but, to show to all that they were willing to forego these for the peace of their country, they tamely submitted, and have since been wanderers among strangers (though hospitable) without homes. We think these sufficient reasons to show to your patriotic minds, that our friends, instead of having a wish to expel a community by force of arms, would suffer their rights to be taken from them before shedding blood.
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Another charge of great magnitude is brought against our friends in the west—of "keeping up a constant communication with the Indian tribes on our frontier, with declaring, even from the pulpit, that the Indians are a part of God's chosen people, and are destined, by heaven, to inherit this land, in common with themselves." We know of nothing, under the present aspect of our Indian relations, calculated to rouse the fears of the people of the upper Missouri, more than a combination or influence of this nature; and we cannot look upon it other than one of the most subtle purposes of those whose feelings are embittered against our friends, to turn the eye of suspicion upon them from every man who is acquainted with the barbarous cruelty of rude savages. Since a rumor was afloat that the western Indians were showing signs of war, we have received frequent private letters from our friends, who have not only expressed fears for their own safety, in case the Indians should break out, but a decided determination to be among the first to repel any invasion, and defend the frontier from all hostilities. We mention the last fact, because it was wholly uncalled for on our part, and came previous to any excitement on the part of the people of Clay County, against our friends, and must definitely show, that this charge is also untrue.
Another charge against our friends, and one that is urged as a reason why they must immediately leave the county of Clay, is, that they are making or are likely to make, the same "their permanent home, the center and general rendezvous of their people." We have never understood such to be the purpose, wish or design of this society; but on the contrary, have ever supposed, that those who ever resided in Clay County, only designed it as a temporary residence, until the law and authority of our country should put them in the quiet possession of their homes in Jackson County; and such as had not possessions there, could purchase to the entire satisfaction and interest of the people of Jackson County.
Having partially mentioned the leading objections urged against our friends, we would here add, that it has not been done with a view on our part, to dissuade you from acting in strict conformity with your preamble and resolutions, offered to the people of Clay County, on the 29th ult., but from a sense of duty to a people embarrassed, persecuted and afflicted. For you are aware, gentlemen, that in times of excitement, virtues are transformed into vices, acts, which in other cases and under other circumstances, would be considered upright and honorable, interpreted contrary from their real intent, are made objectionable and criminal; and from whom could we look for forbearance and compa............