CHAPTER XIV

THE MORMON POINT OF VIEW

After our study of the Mormon program, it is not necessary to devote much space to their point of view. They had a partcu lar thing they wanted to do-to establish a sacred city, Zion, at Independence, Mo. They proposed to buy land from the government and from the Old Settlers as fast as they could accumulate means with which to do so. They expected to obey the laws of the land and to respect the rights of their neighbors. If any nonMormons in the county did not care to sell their lands to them, such would have the same rights the Mormons claimed for themselves as American citizens. None need sell to them who did not so choose, and those who did not choose to do so, could feel as secure and as free from molestation as in any part of the Union. At the time of the exodus, twelve hundred Mormons had made their homes in Jackson County. They owned several thousand acres of land and were in possession of deeds to them from the government or from private individuals who had sold to them. Whatever might be said of those Mormons who had not yet come to Missouri, these twelve hundred had their rights. They were American citizens. They had established homes, and had become attached to them. Said Algernon S. Gilbert, "After all, home is home." Not the market value of these possessions, nor twice that amount would be acceptable in place of them. They desired not favors, but simply the ordinary rights of American citizenship, to own property and to be protected in the possession thereof, in order that they might build a city, under a plan, and in a manner, that they believed was inspired of God. The Mormons appreciated the fact that they would soon outnumber the Old Citizens, but they hoped to be able shortly to buy out those who "could not live among them."

It is clear to any impartial investigator that the Mormons were entitled to the possession of their lands and equally clear that there was nothing in the laws of Missouri or of the United States to prevent the Mormons from coming to the county and purchasing land and making their homes there. Governor Dunklin clearly appreciated this as did also the Old Citizens themselves1. Without any shadow of a doubt the Mormons were within their rights, and, had the civil government of the state, enforced the ordinary commonplace rights that are vouchsafed not only to the citizens of the United States, but to citizens of other nations who might choose

1 See "Address to the Public" for minutes of the meeting held July 23, 1833, at Independence, printed at the end of this chapter.

to reside here as well, the Mormons would have been permitted to carry on the experiment of the United Order, either to a failure. from within, or to a successful conclusion.

Nearly a hundred years have gone since the Mormons first entered Missouri. During that time most of the causes of difficulty have passed away. As our investigation has shown, a great deal of the early bitterness was based on suspicions and misunderstandings incident to slavery and frontier days. Other difficulties were born out of the newness of Mormonism. Its objects, its methods were largely unknown to the American public. The character of the people had not yet manifested itself. Now everyone knows that the Mormons are loyal to the government, and patriotic to their country. But it needed the Mormon Battalion, the Civil War, the Spanish War and the World War to make full demonstration of it. Anyone who has come into personal contact with the Mormons out West knows that, as a people, they are unusually law-abiding and that their religion has not had the expected result of making them poor civil officers. Utah stands very high among the states in educational tests of all kinds, and no longer can the epitaph of “ignorant and low" be laid at the Mormon door. And, as for believing in present day connection with the Divine Creator, through revelation and inspiration, and in consequence of such beliefs, being superstitious fanatics, it may be said that the Mormons have through their loyalty to their convictions placed themselves on a plane where respect has taken the place of censure among those who know them. Since this, in any case, is only a difference in religious viewpoint, it cannot, in the present day, be regarded as a legitimate reason for maintaining enmity. All in all, there is little left of the old causes of misunderstanding. As fate would have it, Jackson County (the old district) has grown in population almost as fast as has Mormonism, and there is no certainty, therefore, that political control would have passed to the Mormons or been retained by them even in this one county. May it not be hoped, therefore, that in the future the newer generations in Missouri and in Utah may right these "old wrongs" by establishing relations of friendly intercourse. Perchance the Mormons may desire to renew the old effort on a smaller scale. When such a time comes, if it does, will not the people of Jackson County, far removed as they are from the heat of the old conflict, and in possession of a larger tolerance born of experience and nurtured by the spirit of progress, feel to welcome a renewal of the Mormon effort to establish industrial equality while at the same time they are building their "chosen city" at the designated spot, in the "Center Place," which they have called "Zion."

NOTES

THE SECRET CONSTITUTION1

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-a purpose which we deem it almost superfluous to say, is justified as well by the law of nature, as by the law of preservation.

It is more than two years since these fanatics, or knaves, (for one or the other they undoubtedly are) made their first appearance amongst us, and pretended as they did, and now do, to hold personal communication and converse face to face with the Most High God; to receive communications and revelations direct from heaven; to heal the sick by laying on hands; and, in short, to perfom all the wonder-working miracles wrought by the inspired Apostles and Prophets of old.

We believed them deluded fanatics, or weak and designing knaves, and that they and their pretensions would soon pass away; but in this we were deceived. The arts of a few designing leaders amongst them, have thus far succeeded in holding them together as a society; and since the arrival of the first of them, they have been daily increasing in numbers; and if they had been respectable citizens in society and thus deluded, they would have been entitled to our pity rather than to our contempt and hatred; but from their appearance, from their manners, and from their conduct since their coming among us, we have every reason to fear that, with very few exceptions, they were of the very dregs of that society from which they came, lazy, idle, and vicious. This we conceive is not idle assertion, but a fact susceptible of proof, for with these few exceptions named above, they brought into our county little or no property with them and left less behind them, and we infer that those only yoked themselves to the Mormon car who had nothing earthly or heavenly to lose by the change; and we fear that if some of the leaders amongst them, had paid the forfeit due of crime, instead of being chosen ambassadors of the Most High, they would have been inmates of solitary cells. But their conduct here stamps their characters in their true colors. More than a year since, it was ascertained that they had been tampering with our slaves and endeavoring to sow dissentions and raise seditions amongst them. Of this their Mormon leaders were informed, and they said they would deal with any of their members who should again in like case offend. But how specious are appearances. In a late number of the Star, published in Indeendence by the leaders of the sect, there is an article inviting free negroes and mulattoes from other states to become Mormons, and remove and settle among us. This exhibits them in still more odious colors. It manifests a desire on the part of their society to inflict on our society an injury that they know would be to us entirely insupportable and one of the surest

1 Printed in Joseph Smith, op.cit., vol. 1, pp. 374-76; also in Howe, Mormonism Unveiled.

means of driving us from the county; for it would require none of the supernatural gifts that they pretend to have, to see that the introduction of such a caste amongst us would corrupt our blacks, and instigate them to bloodshed.

They openly blaspheme the Most High God, and cast contempt on His holy religion, by pretending to receive revelations direct from heaven, by pretending to speak unknown tongues, by direct inspiratiaon, and by divers pretenses derogatory to God and religion, and to the utter subversion of human reason.

They declare openly that God has given them this county of land, and that sooner or later they must and will have possession of our lands for an inheritance; and, in fine, they have conducted themselves on many other occasions, in such manner, that we believe it a duty we owe to ourselves, our wives, and children to the cause of public morals, to remove them from among us, as we are not prepared to give up our pleasant places and goodly possessions to them, or to receive into the bosom of our families, as fit companions for our wives and daughters, the degraded and corrupted free negroes and mulattoes that are now invited to settle among us.

Under such a state of things, even our beautiful county would cease to be a desirable residence, and our situation intolerable. 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.

We will meet at the Court House, at the Town of Independence, on Saturday next, the 20th inst., (July) to consult on subsequent movements. Hundreds of names were signed to this document, including prominent officials of the county.

Minutes of the Jackson Citizens' Proceedings. First Published in the Western Monitor, Fayette, Mo., August 2, 18331

At a meeting of the citizens of Jackson County, Missouri, called for the purpose of adopting measures to rid themselves of the sect of fanatics called Mormons, held at Independence on the 20th day of July, 1833, which meeting was composed of gentlemen from every part of the county, there being present between four and five hundred persons.

The meeting was organized by calling Colonel Richard Simpson to the chair, and appointing James R. Flourney and Col. Samuel D. Lucas secretaries. It was resolved that a committee of seven be appointed to report an address to the public, in relation to the object of this meeting; and the chair named the following gentlemen, to wit: Russell Hicks, Esq., Robert Johnson, Henry Chiles, Esq., Colonel James Hambright, Thomas Hudspeth, Joel F. Chiles, and James M. Hunter. The meeting then adjourned, and convened again, when Robert Johnson, the chairman of said committee, submitted for the consideration of the meeting, the following address, etc.:

This meeting, professing to act not from the excitement of the moment, but under deep and abiding conviction, that the occasion is one that calls for cool deliberation, as well as energetic action, deem it proper to lay before the public an expose of our peculiar situation, in regard to this singular sect of pretended Christians, and a solemn declaration of our unalterable determination to amend it.

The evil is one that no one could have foreseen,and is, therefore, unprovided for by the laws, and the delays incident to legislations, would put the mischief beyond remedy.

1 Reprinted in the Times and Seasons, vol. 6, pp. 832-35.

But little more than two years ago, some two or three of these people made their appearance in the Upper Missouri, and they now number some twelve hundred souls in this county; and each successive autumn and spring pours forth its swarm among us, with a gradual falling of the character of those who compose them; until it seems that those communities from which they come, were flooding us with the very dregs of their composition. Elevated as they mostly are, but a little above the condition of our blacks either in regard to property or education, they have become a subject of much anxiety on that part, serious and well-grounded complaints having been already made of their corrupting influence on our slaves.

We are daily told, and not by the ignorant alone, but by all classes of them, that we, (the Gentiles) of this county, are to be cut off, and our lands appropriated by them for an inheritance. Whether this is to be accomplished by the hand of the destroying angel, the judgments of God, or the arm of His power, they are not fully agreed among themselves.

Some recent remarks in the Evening and Morning Star, their organ in this place, by their tendency to moderate such hopes and repress such desires, show plainly that many of this deluded and infatuated people, have been taught to believe, that our lands were to be won from us by the sword. From this same Star we learn that for want of more honest or commendable employment, many of their society are now preaching through the states of New York, Ohio, and Illinois, and that their numbers are increasing beyond every rational calculation; all of whom are required as soon as convenient to come up to Zion, which name they have thought proper to confer on our little village. Most of those who have already come, are characterized by the profoundest ignorance, the grossest superstition, and the most abject poverty.

Indeed, it is a subject of regret by the Star itself, that they have come not only to lay an inheritance, which means some fifteen acres of wild land for each family, but destitute of the means of procuring bread and meat. When we reflect on the extensive field in which the sect is operating, and that there exists in every country a leaven of superstition that embraces with avidity, notions the most extravagant and unheard of, and that whatever can be gleaned by them from the purlieus of vice, and the abodes of ignorance, it is to be cast like a waif into our social circle, it requires no gift of prophecy to tell that the day is not far distant when the civil government of the county will be in their hands. When the sheriff, the justices, and the county judges will be Mormons, or persons wishing to court their favor from motives of interest or ambition.

What would be the fate of our lives or property, in the hands of jurors or witnesses, who do not blush to declare, and would not upon occasion hesitate to swear that they have wrought miracles, and have been the subjects of miraculous and supernatural cures; have conversed with God and His angels, and possess and exercise the gifts of divination and of unknown tongues, and fired with the prospect of obtaining inheritances without money and without price, may be better imagined than described.

One of the means resorted to by them, in order to drive us to emigrate, is an indirect invitation to free brethern of color in Illinois, to come up, like the rest, to the Land of Zion-true, they say this was not intended to invite, but to prevent their emigration, but this weak attempt to quiet our apprehensions is a poor compliment to our understandings. The article alluded to, contained an extract from our laws, and all necessary directions and cautions to be observed by colored brothren, to enable them upon their arrival here, to claim and exercise the rights of citizenship. Contemporaneous with the appearance of this article, was the expectation among the brethren here, that a considerable number of this degraded cast were only awaiting this information before they should set out on their