This is likely a reference to the exile of Polish soldiers in the aftermath of the Polish Uprising of 1830–1831. When the Poles realized that their revolution against the Russian Empire would fail, thousands of soldiers, officers, and dignitaries fled to western Europe, where they lived in self-imposed exile rather than surrender to the Russian Army and face punishment from Tsar Nicholas I. (Urbanik and Baylen, “Polish Exiles and the Turkish Empire, 1830–1876,” 43.)

Urbanik, Andrew A., and Joseph O. Baylen. “Polish Exiles and the Turkish Empire, 1830–1876.” Polish Review 26, no. 3 (1981): 43–53.

In 1772 Joseph Warren popularized the phrase “asylum of the oppressed” to describe the British colonies in North America. (Bostonian [pseud.], Biographical Sketch of Gen. Joseph Warren, 32.)

Biographical Sketch of Gen. Joseph Warren, Embracing the Prominent Events of His Life, and His Boston Orations of 1772 and 1775; together with the Celebrated Eulogy Pronounced by Perez Morton, M. M., on the Re­interment of the Remains by the Masonic Order, at King’s Chapel, in 1776. Boston: Shepard, Clark, and Brown, 1857.

This is likely a reference to Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs, who ordered the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from Missouri in 1838 under threat of extermination. (Lilburn W. Boggs, Jefferson City, MO, to John B. Clark, Fayette, MO, 27 Oct. 1838, Mormon War Papers, Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City.)

Records of Governor Thomas Reynolds, 1840–1844. MSA.

Imperium in imperio is Latin for “empire within an empire.” JS was referring to the division of power in the federal system and the Constitution’s federal supremacy clause. (U.S. Constitution, art. 6, clause 2; see also Rogers, Unpopular Sovereignty, 30.)

Rogers, Brent M. Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017.

See Proverbs 11:14.

The Missouri state militia seized the weapons of Latter-day Saints at Far West, Missouri, on 1 November 1838. (Corrill, Brief History, 42–43.)

This is a reference to the Nullification Crisis, which occurred in 1832–1833 when the government of South Carolina declared its intention to disregard the federal tariffs of 1828 and 1832. South Carolina’s actions sparked a debate over the ability of individual states to nullify federal law. President Andrew Jackson claimed that states could not nullify federal law and prepared to lead the United States Army to South Carolina to enforce it, if necessary. Calhoun was one of the leading proponents of South Carolina’s actions. (Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 401–410.)

Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

This is likely a reference to the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island. Starting in 1841, Thomas Wilson Dorr led a movement to revise Rhode Island’s 1663 colonial charter, which limited voting to men who owned property valued at $134 or more. Dorr called for suffrage for all white males, and his supporters established a new state government that rivaled the duly elected state government. In spring 1842, Rhode Island governor Samuel Ward King declared martial law and requested federal troops to defend the state’s arsenal from a raid Dorr and his supporters were planning. Dorr’s rebellion ultimately failed, but for many Americans it symbolized the people’s right to alter and amend their forms of government when the majority deemed it necessary to do so. (Chaput, People’s Martyr, 1–11, chaps. 3–5.)

Chaput, Erik J. The People’s Martyr: Thomas Wilson Dorr and His 1842 Rhode Island Rebellion. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013.

“The Partial Judge” is one of Aesop’s fables. In it, a farmer informs a lawyer that his bull killed one of the lawyer’s oxen and that he would like to make reparations. The lawyer praises the farmer for his honesty. When the farmer reveals that it was actually the lawyer’s bull that killed one of the farmer’s oxen, the lawyer asks for an investigation before considering paying reparations. (Dodsley, Select Fables of Aesop, 106.)

Dodsley, R. Select Fables of Aesop and Other Fabulists, in Three Books. New ed. London: Henry Mozley, 1809.

Starting around 1792 in Exeter, England, Joanna Southcott began prophesying, and she eventually declared that she was the woman described in the twelfth chapter of Revelation who would give birth to a son “who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.” Southcott was harshly criticized in English newspapers. She died in 1814, but her followers sustained a religious movement through the end of the nineteenth century. (Revelation 12:1–5; see also Hopkins, Woman to Deliver Her People, 17–20, 199–217.)

Hopkins, James K. A Woman to Deliver Her People: Joanna Southcott and English Millenar- ianism in an Era of Revolution. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.

Lee was the founder of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, a group also known as the Shakers. In 1774 she led her followers from England to New York, where they established an egalitarian community. The Shakers occasionally experienced persecution in the form of mob violence. Lee and the Shakers were pacifists and therefore refused to support the American Revolution. She and other Shaker leaders were arrested in 1780. (See Stein, Shaker Experience in America, 1–38.)

Stein, Stephen J. The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.

The French Prophets were a millenarian group of prophets who left France for England in the early eighteenth century and preached that the second coming of Jesus Christ was imminent. The group attracted more than five hundred followers in the first half of the eighteenth century. Many group members were subjected to mob violence in England. (See Schwartz, French Prophets, chap. 3.)

Schwartz, Hillel. The French Prophets: The History of a Millenarian Group in Eighteenth-Century England. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

The first Quakers to arrive in the New England colonies were Mary Fisher and Ann Austin. Shortly after they reached the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the mid-seventeenth century, they were persecuted for their beliefs. Other Quakers followed Fisher and Austin, and the colony banished many of them. Eventually, most of the Quakers in Massachusetts resettled in the more tolerant colony of Rhode Island. (See Hamm, Quakers in America, 22–24.)

Hamm, Thomas D. The Quakers in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

This racial slur was commonly employed by white Americans by the nineteenth century to refer derogatorily to people of African descent. Black Americans strongly objected to the use of the term. The Church Historian’s Press also condemns the use of this word but retains it in document transcripts to accurately present the historical record and to illuminate the oppressive racial landscape faced by Black Americans. (Easton, Treatise on the Intellectual Character, and Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the U. States, 40–41.)

Easton, Hosea. A Treatise on the Intellectual Character, and Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the U. States; and the Prejudice Exercised towards Them: With a Sermon on the Duty of the Church to Them. Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1837.

Slave rebellions occurred occasionally in the United States during the nineteenth century. The best-known slave rebellion at this time was Nat Turner’s Rebellion, which took place in Virginia in 1831. (See Sinha, Slave’s Cause, 57–59.)

Sinha, Manisha. The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.

This is a reference to the hypocritical response of the lawyer at the conclusion of the fable “The Partial Judge.” (Dodsley, Select Fables of Aesop, 106.)

Dodsley, R. Select Fables of Aesop and Other Fabulists, in Three Books. New ed. London: Henry Mozley, 1809.

See Revelation, 16–17 Dec. 1833 [D&C 101:89].

During Jackson’s tenure as president, his envoys settled American spoliation claims worth over $7 million. These spoliations were based on American merchants’ losses dating back to the Napoleonic Wars, and most were charged against France. In 1835 the French government refused to pay the first installment. Jackson responded by threatening to send privateers to attack French commercial vessels. Some in Congress, including John Quincy Adams, began preparing for war. Ultimately, both sides found a diplomatic solution and averted violent conflict. The French government subsequently authorized the payment of the first installment. (Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 363.)

Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

“White men stealers” may be a reference to the kidnappings of father and son Daniel and Philander Avery by Missourians in November and December 1843. (Affidavit from Daniel Avery, 28 Dec. 1843.)

See Shakespeare, King Lear, act 3, sc. 2, line 53, in Wadsworth Shakespeare, 1323.

The Wadsworth Shakespeare, Formerly “The Riverside Shakespeare”: The Complete Works. Edited by G. Blakemore Evans, J. J. M. Tobin, Herschel Baker, Anne Barton, Frank Kermode, Harry Levin, Hallett Smith, and Marie Edel. 2nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 1997.

See Mark 9:44.

See U.S. Constitution, amend. X.