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Letter to John C. Calhoun, 2 January 1844

Source Note

JS, Letter,
Nauvoo

Principal gathering place for Saints following expulsion from Missouri. Beginning in 1839, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased lands in earlier settlement of Commerce and planned settlement of Commerce City, as well as surrounding areas....

More Info
, Hancock Co., IL, to
John C. Calhoun

18 Mar. 1782–31 Mar. 1850. Lawyer, politician. Born near Hutchinson’s Mill, Ninety-Sixth District (later Calhoun Mill, Mount Carmel, McCormick Co.), South Carolina. Son of Patrick Calhoun and Martha Caldwell. Graduated from Yale, 1804, in New Haven, New Haven...

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, Fort Hill, Pickens Co., SC, 2 Jan. 1844. Featured version published in Times and Seasons, 1 Jan. 1844, vol. 5, no. 1, 394–396. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter to Isaac Galland, 22 Mar. 1839.

Historical Introduction

On 2 January 1844, JS wrote a reply to
John C. Calhoun

18 Mar. 1782–31 Mar. 1850. Lawyer, politician. Born near Hutchinson’s Mill, Ninety-Sixth District (later Calhoun Mill, Mount Carmel, McCormick Co.), South Carolina. Son of Patrick Calhoun and Martha Caldwell. Graduated from Yale, 1804, in New Haven, New Haven...

View Full Bio
in which he debated Calhoun’s opinions on the federal government’s role in protecting religious minorities. Calhoun was a prominent politician from
South Carolina

One of original thirteen states that formed U.S. Settled at Port Royal, 1670. Separated from North Carolina and organized under royal government, 1719. Admitted as state, 1788. Population in 1830 about 581,000. Population in 1840 about 594,000. JS exchanged...

More Info
who had served in both chambers of the
United States

North American constitutional republic. Constitution ratified, 17 Sept. 1787. Population in 1805 about 6,000,000; in 1830 about 13,000,000; and in 1844 about 20,000,000. Louisiana Purchase, 1803, doubled size of U.S. Consisted of seventeen states at time ...

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Congress and as vice president to both
John Quincy Adams

11 July 1767–23 Feb. 1848. Lawyer, diplomat, politician. Born in Braintree (later in Quincy), Suffolk Co., Massachusetts. Son of John Adams and Abigail Smith. Lived alternately in Braintree and Boston, from 1772. Studied law at Harvard University. Married...

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and Andrew Jackson.
1

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 770.


Comprehensive Works Cited

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.

JS and Calhoun first met in 1839 or 1840 when JS was in
Washington DC

Created as district for seat of U.S. federal government by act of Congress, 1790, and named Washington DC, 1791. Named in honor of George Washington. Headquarters of executive, legislative, and judicial branches of U.S. government relocated to Washington ...

More Info
to petition the United States Senate for redress and reparations for the property
church

The Book of Mormon related that when Christ set up his church in the Americas, “they which were baptized in the name of Jesus, were called the church of Christ.” The first name used to denote the church JS organized on 6 April 1830 was “the Church of Christ...

View Glossary
members had lost in
Missouri

Area acquired by U.S. in Louisiana Purchase, 1803, and established as territory, 1812. Missouri Compromise, 1820, admitted Missouri as slave state, 1821. Population in 1830 about 140,000; in 1836 about 240,000; and in 1840 about 380,000. Latter-day Saint ...

More Info
during the 1830s. Calhoun apparently declined to support the church’s petitioning efforts at that time.
2

Letter from John C. Calhoun, 2 Dec. 1843; see also Letter to Hyrum Smith and Nauvoo High Council, 5 Dec. 1839.


In November 1843, JS wrote to Calhoun and four other prospective presidential candidates to ask, “What will be your rule of action, relative to us, as a people, should fortune favor your ascension to the Chief Magistracy?”
3

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.


Calhoun responded to JS’s letter on 2 December 1843. He explained that, as president, he would give all men and women equal protection under the law regardless of religious affiliation, but he stated that, in his opinion, the Latter-day Saints’ case “does not come within the Jurisdiction of the Federal government, which is one of limited and specific powers.”
4

Letter from John C. Calhoun, 2 Dec. 1843.


Calhoun’s response was similar in tone and substance to that of
Lewis Cass

9 Oct. 1782–17 June 1866. Teacher, lawyer, soldier, author, politician. Born in Exeter, Rockingham Co., New Hampshire. Son of Jonathan Cass and Mary Gilman. Attended Phillips Academy, 1792–1799, in Exeter, where he also taught. Teacher in Wilmington, New ...

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, another presidential hopeful. Cass wrote to JS, “I do not see what power, the President of the United States can have over the matter, or how he can interfere in it.”
5

Letter from Lewis Cass, 9 Dec. 1843.


On 27 December 1843, JS assigned one of his clerks,
William W. Phelps

17 Feb. 1792–7 Mar. 1872. Writer, teacher, printer, newspaper editor, publisher, postmaster, lawyer. Born at Hanover, Morris Co., New Jersey. Son of Enon Phelps and Mehitabel Goldsmith. Moved to Homer, Cortland Co., New York, 1800. Married Sally Waterman,...

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, to draft responses to
Calhoun

18 Mar. 1782–31 Mar. 1850. Lawyer, politician. Born near Hutchinson’s Mill, Ninety-Sixth District (later Calhoun Mill, Mount Carmel, McCormick Co.), South Carolina. Son of Patrick Calhoun and Martha Caldwell. Graduated from Yale, 1804, in New Haven, New Haven...

View Full Bio
and
Cass

9 Oct. 1782–17 June 1866. Teacher, lawyer, soldier, author, politician. Born in Exeter, Rockingham Co., New Hampshire. Son of Jonathan Cass and Mary Gilman. Attended Phillips Academy, 1792–1799, in Exeter, where he also taught. Teacher in Wilmington, New ...

View Full Bio
and instructed him on the content of those replies.
6

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.)


Comprehensive Works Cited

McBride, Spencer W. Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.

Phelps apparently drafted the letter sometime over the next week. He dated the response to Calhoun 2 January 1844, which suggests that JS had reviewed and approved the letter by that date.
7

JS, Nauvoo, IL, to John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, SC, 2 Jan. 1844, draft, JS Collection, CHL.


On 5 January, JS invited Phelps to read him the response.
8

JS, Journal, 5 Jan. 1844.


The letter frequently quotes passages of
Calhoun

18 Mar. 1782–31 Mar. 1850. Lawyer, politician. Born near Hutchinson’s Mill, Ninety-Sixth District (later Calhoun Mill, Mount Carmel, McCormick Co.), South Carolina. Son of Patrick Calhoun and Martha Caldwell. Graduated from Yale, 1804, in New Haven, New Haven...

View Full Bio
’s December 1843 letter and then rebuts Calhoun’s ideas. JS argued that the devotion of Calhoun and other members of Congress to the philosophy of states’ rights negatively affected religious minorities in the
United States

North American constitutional republic. Constitution ratified, 17 Sept. 1787. Population in 1805 about 6,000,000; in 1830 about 13,000,000; and in 1844 about 20,000,000. Louisiana Purchase, 1803, doubled size of U.S. Consisted of seventeen states at time ...

More Info
. He asserted that without a federal government empowered to redress the persecution of such groups within individual states, mobs would continue to persecute religious minorities without legal consequences. JS maintained that the remedy was a strong federal government enabled to intervene on behalf of such groups.
JS does not appear to have sent the letter directly to
Calhoun

18 Mar. 1782–31 Mar. 1850. Lawyer, politician. Born near Hutchinson’s Mill, Ninety-Sixth District (later Calhoun Mill, Mount Carmel, McCormick Co.), South Carolina. Son of Patrick Calhoun and Martha Caldwell. Graduated from Yale, 1804, in New Haven, New Haven...

View Full Bio
but rather had it published as an open letter to Calhoun in the
Nauvoo

Principal gathering place for Saints following expulsion from Missouri. Beginning in 1839, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased lands in earlier settlement of Commerce and planned settlement of Commerce City, as well as surrounding areas....

More Info
newspapers. It was published in the 1 January 1844 issue of the Times and Seasons, which was evidently published after 2 January, and in the 10 January issue of the Nauvoo Neighbor.
9

“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.


Several newspapers reprinted the text of the letter, including the Niles’ National Register—a prominent national newspaper published in
Baltimore

City located on north side of Patapsco River about forty miles northeast of Washington DC. Laid out as town, 1729. Received city charter, 1797. Population in 1830 about 80,600. Population in 1840 about 102,300. David S. Hollister wrote to JS from Baltimore...

More Info
—which featured the letter in its 3 February 1844 issue.
10

“Correspondence of Gen. Jos. Smith and Hon. J. C. Calhoun,” Niles’ National Register (Baltimore), 3 Feb. 1844, 357–358.


Comprehensive Works Cited

Niles’ National Register. Washington DC, 1837–1839; Baltimore, 1839–1848; Philadelphia, 1848–1849.

JS retained a draft of the letter written by
Phelps

17 Feb. 1792–7 Mar. 1872. Writer, teacher, printer, newspaper editor, publisher, postmaster, lawyer. Born at Hanover, Morris Co., New Jersey. Son of Enon Phelps and Mehitabel Goldsmith. Moved to Homer, Cortland Co., New York, 1800. Married Sally Waterman,...

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and a copy made by
Thomas Bullock

23 Dec. 1816–10 Feb. 1885. Farmer, excise officer, secretary, clerk. Born in Leek, Staffordshire, England. Son of Thomas Bullock and Mary Hall. Married Henrietta Rushton, 25 June 1838. Moved to Ardee, Co. Louth, Ireland, Nov. 1839; to Isle of Anglesey, Aug...

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.
11

JS, Nauvoo, IL, to John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, SC, 2 Jan. 1844, draft; JS, Nauvoo, IL, to John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, SC, 2 Jan. 1844, copy, JS Collection, CHL.


Because JS apparently intended the letter to be a public response to Calhoun, the version from the Times and Seasons is featured here as the earliest published version of the letter. There is no known response from Calhoun.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    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.

  2. [2]

    Letter from John C. Calhoun, 2 Dec. 1843; see also Letter to Hyrum Smith and Nauvoo High Council, 5 Dec. 1839.

  3. [3]

    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.

  4. [4]

    Letter from John C. Calhoun, 2 Dec. 1843.

  5. [5]

    Letter from Lewis Cass, 9 Dec. 1843.

  6. [6]

    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.

  7. [7]

    JS, Nauvoo, IL, to John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, SC, 2 Jan. 1844, draft, JS Collection, CHL.

  8. [8]

    JS, Journal, 5 Jan. 1844.

  9. [9]

    “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.

  10. [10]

    “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.

  11. [11]

    JS, Nauvoo, IL, to John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, SC, 2 Jan. 1844, draft; JS, Nauvoo, IL, to John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, SC, 2 Jan. 1844, copy, JS Collection, CHL.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. Letter to John C. Calhoun, 2 January 1844, Draft Letter to John C. Calhoun, 2 January 1844, Thomas Bullock Copy
*Letter to John C. Calhoun, 2 January 1844
Letter to John C. Calhoun, 2 January 1844, as Published in Nauvoo Neighbor Letter to John C. Calhoun, 2 January 1844, as Published in New York Herald History, 1838–1856, volume E-1 [1 July 1843–30 April 1844] “History of Joseph Smith”

Page 394

Nauvoo

Principal gathering place for Saints following expulsion from Missouri. Beginning in 1839, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased lands in earlier settlement of Commerce and planned settlement of Commerce City, as well as surrounding areas....

More Info
, Illinois, Jan. 2, 1844.
Sir

18 Mar. 1782–31 Mar. 1850. Lawyer, politician. Born near Hutchinson’s Mill, Ninety-Sixth District (later Calhoun Mill, Mount Carmel, McCormick Co.), South Carolina. Son of Patrick Calhoun and Martha Caldwell. Graduated from Yale, 1804, in New Haven, New Haven...

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:—Your reply to my letter of last November, concerning your rule of action towards the
Latter Day Saints

The Book of Mormon related that when Christ set up his church in the Americas, “they which were baptized in the name of Jesus, were called the church of Christ.” The first name used to denote the church JS organized on 6 April 1830 was “the Church of Christ...

View Glossary
, if elected President, is at hand;
1

Letter to John C. Calhoun, 4 Nov. 1843; Letter from John C. Calhoun, 2 Dec. 1843.


and, that you and your friends of the same opinion, relative to the matter in question, may not be disappointed as to me, or my mind, upon so grave a subject, permit me, as a law-abiding man; as a well wisher to the perpetuity of constitutional rights and liberty, and as a friend to the free worship of Almighty God, by all, according to the dictates of every persons’ conscience, to say I am surprised, that a man, or men, in the highest stations of public life, should have made up such a fragile ‘view’ of a case, than which there is not one on the face of the globe fraught with so much consequence to the happiness of men in this world, or the world to come. To be sure, the first paragraph of your letter appears very complacent, and fair on a white sheet of paper, and who, that is ambitious for greatness and power, would not have said the same thing?
2

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.)


Your oath would bind you to support the constitution and laws, and as all creeds and religions are alike tolerated, they must, of course, all be justified or condemned, according to merit or demerit—but why, tell me why, are all the principle men, held up for public stations, so cautiously careful not to publish to the world, that they will judge a righteous judgment—law or no law: for laws and opinions, like the vanes of steeples, change with the wind. One congress passes a law, and another repeals it, and one statesman says that the constitution means this, and another that; and who does not know that all may be wrong? The opinion and pledge, therefore, in the first paragraph of your reply to my question, like the forced steam from the engine of a steam boat, makes the show of a bright cloud at first, but when it comes in contact with a purer atmosphere, dissolves to common air again.
Your second paragraph leaves you naked before yourself, like a likeness in a mirror, when you say that ‘according to your view, the federal government is one of limited and specific powers,’ and has no jurisdiction in the case of the Mormons.
3

Letter from John C. Calhoun, 2 Dec. 1843.


So then, a state can at any time, expel any portion of her citizens with impunity, and in the language of
Mr. [Martin] Van Buren

5 Dec. 1782–24 July 1862. Lawyer, politician, diplomat, farmer. Born in Kinderhook, Columbia Co., New York. Son of Abraham Van Buren and Maria Hoes Van Alen. Member of Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. Worked as law clerk, 1800, in New York City. Returned...

View Full Bio
, frosted over with your gracious ‘views of the case,’ ‘though the cause is ever so just, government can do nothing for them, because it has no power.[’]
4

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.)


Go on, then,
Missouri

Area acquired by U.S. in Louisiana Purchase, 1803, and established as territory, 1812. Missouri Compromise, 1820, admitted Missouri as slave state, 1821. Population in 1830 about 140,000; in 1836 about 240,000; and in 1840 about 380,000. Latter-day Saint ...

More Info
, after another set of inhabitants, (as the Latter Day Saints did) have entered some two or three hundred thousand dollars worth of land, and made extensive improvements thereon:
5

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.)


Comprehensive Works Cited

Rohrbough, Malcolm J. The Land Office Business: The Settlement and Administration of American Public Lands, 1789–1837. New York: Ocford University Press, 1968.

go on, then I say, banish the occupants or owners, or kill them, as the mobbers did many of the Latter Day Saints, and take their lands and property as a spoil:
6

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.)


and let the legislature, as in the case of the Mormons, appropriate a couple of hundred thousand dollars to pay the mob for doing the job;
7

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.)


Comprehensive Works Cited

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.

for the renowned senator from
South Carolina

One of original thirteen states that formed U.S. Settled at Port Royal, 1670. Separated from North Carolina and organized under royal government, 1719. Admitted as state, 1788. Population in 1830 about 581,000. Population in 1840 about 594,000. JS exchanged...

More Info
, Mr.
J[ohn] C. Calhoun

18 Mar. 1782–31 Mar. 1850. Lawyer, politician. Born near Hutchinson’s Mill, Ninety-Sixth District (later Calhoun Mill, Mount Carmel, McCormick Co.), South Carolina. Son of Patrick Calhoun and Martha Caldwell. Graduated from Yale, 1804, in New Haven, New Haven...

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, says the powers of the federal Government are so specific and limited that it has no jurisdiction of the case! Oh ye people who groan under the oppression of tyrants, ye exiled Poles, who have felt the iron [p. 394]
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Letter to John C. Calhoun, 2 January 1844
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Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Letter to John C. Calhoun, 4 Nov. 1843; Letter from John C. Calhoun, 2 Dec. 1843.

  2. [2]

    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.)

  3. [3]

    Letter from John C. Calhoun, 2 Dec. 1843.

  4. [4]

    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.)

  5. [5]

    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.

  6. [6]

    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.)

  7. [7]

    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.

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