Footnotes
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 770.
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–1989: The Continental Congress September 5, 1774, to October 21, 1788, and the Congress of the United States from the First through the One Hundredth Congresses March 4, 1789, to January 3, 1989, Inclusive. Edited by Kathryn Allamong Jacob and Bruce A. Ragsdale. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989.
Letter to John C. Calhoun, 4 Nov. 1843, underlining in original; see also JS, Draft Letter to Presidential Candidates, 4 Nov. 1843, JS Collection, CHL. The other prospective candidates to whom JS wrote were Lewis Cass, Henry Clay, Richard M. Johnson, and Martin Van Buren.
JS, Journal, 27 Dec. 1843. If Phelps drafted a response to Cass, that letter is not extant. Because Cass’s reply echoed Calhoun’s and because JS apparently intended to publish the response to Calhoun as an open letter, a response to Cass may have been deemed superfluous. (McBride, Joseph Smith for President, 84–87.)
McBride, Spencer W. Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.
JS, Nauvoo, IL, to John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, SC, 2 Jan. 1844, draft, JS Collection, CHL.
“Correspondence of Gen. Joseph Smith and Hon. J. C. Calhoun,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 10 Jan. 1844, [2]–[3]. The inclusion of this 2 January letter in the 1 January 1844 issue of the Times and Seasons indicates that the issue was published sometime after the issue date.
“Correspondence of Gen. Jos. Smith and Hon. J. C. Calhoun,” Niles’ National Register (Baltimore), 3 Feb. 1844, 357–358.
Niles’ National Register. Washington DC, 1837–1839; Baltimore, 1839–1848; Philadelphia, 1848–1849.
In the first paragraph of his letter to JS, Calhoun wrote, “If I should be elected, I would strive to administer the Government. according to the Constitution and the laws of the Union; and that, as they make no distinction between citizens of different religion creeds, I should make none. As far as it depends on the Executive Department, all should have the full benefit of both, and none should be exempt from their operation.” (Letter from John C. Calhoun, 2 Dec. 1843.)
According to a near-contemporaneous report of JS’s meeting with President Martin Van Buren in 1839, Van Buren responded to JS’s request for assistance with the Saints’ petitioning efforts by stating, “What can I do? I can do nothing for you,— if I do any thing, I shall come in contact with the whole State of Missouri.” A few months later, JS again recounted the meeting and reported that Van Buren had stated, “Help you! how can I help you? All Missouri would turn against me.” (Letter to Hyrum Smith and Nauvoo High Council, 5 Dec. 1839; Discourse, 1 Mar. 1840.)
Church members in Missouri purchased much of the land that they resided on in Jackson and Carroll counties. Many church members held the preemption rights to much of the land on which they resided in Caldwell County and to portions of lands in Daviess and Carroll counties. A person holding preemption rights to a piece of land could buy it for $1.25 per acre when the government officially sold it, even if improvements they had already made on the land had increased its real value. According to the memorial that JS, Sidney Rigdon, and Elias Higbee submitted to Congress in 1840, the improvements that church members made to their land in these counties raised the value to between $10 and $25 per acre. The memorial estimated the total value of church members’ property in Missouri at $2 million. (Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840; Rohrbough, Land Office Business, 103, 141; see also [Edward Partridge], “A History, of the Persecution,” Times and Seasons, Dec. 1839, 1:19.)
Rohrbough, Malcolm J. The Land Office Business: The Settlement and Administration of American Public Lands, 1789–1837. New York: Ocford University Press, 1968.
JS, Sidney Rigdon, and Elias Higbee summarized the murder of several Latter-day Saints and the taking of their land by Missourians in the memorial they submitted to Congress in 1840. (Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840.)
This is a reference to the $200,000 that the Missouri legislature appropriated to pay members of the state militia for their service. Many Latter-day Saints involved in the conflict in Missouri claimed that the militia was part of the mob that persecuted them. (Gentry and Compton, Fire and Sword, 496–497.)
Gentry, Leland Homer, and Todd M. Compton. Fire and Sword: A History of the Latter-day Saints in Northern Missouri, 1836–39. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011.