On 6 May 1845 the council met in the evening from 6:30 to 10:15. A brief discussion of the led to a decision that all property exchanged for stock in the Nauvoo House should be deeded to the church’s trustees-in-trust. then introduced the topic that would occupy most of the session. In light of the upcoming trial in , Illinois, of five men accused of the murders of JS and , and of the rumored plans of anti-Mormon opponents, he proposed the council consider “the course best for us to pursue the next four weeks, in regard to the court and the Carthaginians.” summarized in his journal the threat: “It appears their determination is to get up an excitement at the Court & they are already trying it by reporting that the Saints are going en masse to Carthage at the Court and if the Court does not execute the law on the murderers that we intend to destroy the Court and Citizens of the . From reports which the brethren have brought who have been at Carthage the mob are laying deep plans to bring us into collision with the so as to bring about our expulsion or extermination forthwith.” According to , a sympathetic non-Mormon who was the Hancock County sheriff and brigadier general of the county militia, the actions of the Saints were playing into their opponents’ hands. reported to the council a conversation with Deming that indicated that the opponents of the Mormons were “fired up with a greater zeal” than he had ever seen, in part because of several recent defiant editorials in the Nauvoo Neighbor.

Council members approved measures to decrease the tension and to ensure the defense of . First, they assigned to write letters to governor and congressman expressing the Saints’ fears that a mob would prevent a fair trial and asking them to attend the trials and to send state troops to protect the integrity of the trial as well as the residents of Nauvoo. Second, the council directed and to write an editorial for the Nauvoo Neighbor, which the council accepted and which appeared in the newspaper the following day. The article rebutted rumors that the Latter-day Saints would “throng ” during the upcoming trial and pledged that church leaders would abide by the agreement they had made with Ford to allow the court system to administer justice to those accused of murdering the Smiths. Though this decision was not reflected in the council record, in his journal wrote that the council also agreed “that none of the brethren leave the City” to attend court except those “required to be their on business, so that we may prevent the mob from coming into the City and committing depredations in the absence of the brethren.”