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This item is reproduced by permission of Clemson University Special Collections and Archives, Clemson, South Carolina.
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Letter to John C. Calhoun, 4 November 1843

Source Note

JS, Letter, , Hancock Co., IL, to , , Pickens District, SC, 4 Nov. 1843; handwriting of ; one page; John Caldwell Calhoun Papers, Clemson University Special Collections and Archives, Clemson, SC. Includes address, wafer seal, wax seal, postal stamp, postal notations, and dockets.
Bifolium measuring 10 × 7⅞ inches (25 × 20 cm) and ruled with twenty-eight horizontal lines printed in blue ink. The document was inscribed on the recto of the first leaf; the verso of the first leaf and the recto of the second leaf were left blank. It was trifolded twice in letter style, addressed, sealed with a red adhesive wafer and a red wax seal, and postmarked. The letter was torn when opened. The second leaf contains wafer residue on both sides and wax seal residue on the verso. A rectangular piece of paper was glued to the verso of the first leaf; this paper was torn at the top and now measures 2¼ × 2⅛ inches (6 × 5 cm). Glue residue is visible on the recto of the first leaf. The document was later refolded for filing and docketed.
docketed the letter and filed it with his papers. The majority of Calhoun’s papers were at some time donated to the Clemson Library. The library then transferred the collection to the department of Special Collections. Three additional groups of Calhoun’s papers were accessioned by Special Collections in 1989, 1991, and 1992. All four of these groups of papers were merged and cataloged in 1998.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    See the register for John Caldwell Calhoun, Papers, 1784–1980, in the Special Collections and Archives, Clemson Libraries, Clemson University catalog.

Historical Introduction

On 4 November 1843, inscribed a series of letters on behalf of JS to presumptive presidential candidates , , , Richard M. Johnson, and inquiring about their policies toward the should they be elected president in the 1844 election. The letters were prompted by the Latter-day Saints’ frustration over the federal government’s refusal to provide redress for the persecutions and property losses they suffered in in the 1830s. Though church leaders and individuals sympathetic to the Latter-day Saints’ plight petitioned President Andrew Jackson in 1834, President Martin Van Buren in 1839, and members of the Congress in 1840 and 1842, government officials took no meaningful action to help the Saints obtain redress.
During late fall and early winter 1843, church leaders renewed their efforts to petition the federal government for reparation by writing two additional memorials to Congress. As part of a broader strategy of redress, they also published appeals addressed to selected citizens and wrote letters to candidates seeking the presidency in 1844. Church leaders also encouraged members to exercise their voting rights. On 1 October, and editor published an article in the Times and Seasons titled “Who Shall Be Our Next President?” that summarized the church’s unsuccessful attempts to obtain redress and encouraged Latter-day Saints to vote for a presidential candidate “who will be the most likely to render us assistance in obtaining redress for our grievances.” Several weeks later, church leaders received an unexpected offer of help. On 23 October, church member informed JS that , Illinois, resident had expressed “sympathy for the wrongs yourself & Bretheren suffered in ” and an interest in writing a petition to Congress on behalf of the Latter-day Saints. Heywood enclosed a copy of a letter that Frierson had written to former South Carolina representative Franklin H. Elmore, in which he stated his sympathy for the Latter-day Saints’ plight and suggested that current South Carolina congressman Robert Rhett introduce a petition in Congress.
As JS and other church leaders discussed petitioning Congress, they also composed direct appeals to the citizens of several eastern states and wrote letters to presidential candidates vying for the Whig Party’s and Democratic Party’s nominations. On 2 November, JS, , , , , and met in council to talk over “political matters.” In addition to discussing the and letters, the council determined to “write a letter to the 5 candidats for the Presiden[c]y to enquire what their feelig [feelings] were or what their course would be towards the sai[n]ts if they were elected.”
Though the Democratic and Whig national nominating conventions did not take place until May 1844, several candidates had emerged as frontrunners by this time. President , who ascended to the office when President William Henry Harrison died thirty-two days into his term, had been effectively expelled from the Whig Party in 1842 for vetoing key pieces of legislation favored by his party. With the incumbent president ostracized from his own party, emerged as the favorite to win the Whig nomination. The Democratic favorite was former president , with , Johnson, James Buchanan, and all gaining some regional support.
On 4 November, drafted a form letter to five presidential aspirants—, , , Johnson, and . The letter briefly recounted the Latter-day Saints’ sufferings at the hands of Missourians and previous attempts to obtain redress and asked each candidate about his policy toward church members should he be elected president. Later that evening, Richards met with JS and Times and Seasons editor and read the letter aloud. JS apparently instructed Richards to make some slight corrections to the draft before he approved it. Richards then inscribed five clean copies of the text and addressed one to each candidate.
The letter to South Carolina senator is apparently the only sent copy of the five letters that is extant; it is featured here as a representative sample of the set. That letter was mailed from , Illinois, to , South Carolina, on 5 November 1843. The Pickens Court House postmaster apparently forwarded the letter to Calhoun’s Fort Hill plantation, located approximately ten miles southeast of the settlement, on 23 November. A docket in Calhoun’s handwriting and a letter of reply indicate that he received the letter. In his 2 December 1843 response, Calhoun informed JS of his position that the Latter-day Saints’ case “does not come within the Jurisdiction of the Federal government.”
Copies of the letter to , as well as Calhoun’s reply, were printed in several publications in January 1844, including the Times and Seasons, the Nauvoo Neighbor, and the New York Herald.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Sidney Gilbert et al., Liberty, MO, to Andrew Jackson, Washington DC, 10 Apr. 1834, copy, William W. Phelps, Collection of Missouri Documents, CHL; “Joseph Smith Documents from September 1839 through January 1841”; Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840; “Latter-day Saints,” Alias Mormons: The Petition of the Latter-day Saints, Commonly Known as Mormons, House of Representatives doc. no. 22, 26th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1840); Elias Higbee et al., Memorial to Congress, 10 Jan. 1842, photocopy, Material Relating to Mormon Expulsion from Missouri, CHL.

    Phelps, William W. Collection of Missouri Documents, 1833–1837. CHL. MS 657.

    “Latter-day Saints,” Alias Mormons: The Petition of the Latter-day Saints, Commonly Known as Mormons. House of Representatives doc. no. 22, 26th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1840).

    Material Relating to Mormon Expulsion from Missouri, 1839–1843. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2145.

  2. [2]

    JS dictated a revelation in late 1833 that instructed the Latter-day Saints to “impertune at the feet of the judge . . . the Govoner . . . [and] the President” and established the precedent for the Saints’ later petitions for redress. (Revelation, 16–17 Dec. 1833 [D&C 101:86–88].)

  3. [3]

    “Who Shall Be Our Next President?,” Times and Seasons, 1 Oct. 1843, 4:343–344.

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

  4. [4]

    Letter from Joseph L. Heywood, 23 Oct. 1843.

  5. [5]

    Frierson’s letter to Elmore is not extant, but it was printed in the Nauvoo Neighbor. Church leaders eventually approved two memorials to Congress in late November and mid-December. (John Frierson, Quincy, IL, to Franklin H. Elmore, 12 Oct. 1843, in Nauvoo Neighbor, 5 June 1844, [2]–[3]; Minutes, 29 Nov. 1843; JS et al., Memorial to U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, 28 Nov. 1843, Record Group 46, Records of the U.S. Senate, National Archives, Washington DC; Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 16 Dec. 1843–12 Feb. 1844.)

    Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.

  6. [6]

    JS, Journal, 21 Nov. 1843; for examples of appeals to citizens of eastern states, see General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, ca. 21 Nov.–3 Dec. 1843; Pratt, Appeal to the Inhabitants of the State of New York, 1–6; Sidney Rigdon, “To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, in Legislative Capacity Assembled,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 31 Jan. 1844, [1]; and Phineas Richards, “An Appeal, to the Inhabitants of Massachusetts,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 7 Feb. 1844, [2].

    Pratt, Parley P. An Appeal to the Inhabitants of the State of New York, Letter to Queen Victoria: (Reprinted from the Tenth European Edition,): The Fountain of Knowledge, Immortality of the Body, and Intelligence and Affection. Nauvoo, IL: John Taylor, 1844.

    Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.

  7. [7]

    Clayton, Journal, 2 Nov. 1843.

    Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

  8. [8]

    JS, Journal, 2 Nov. 1843; see also Letter to Joseph L. Heywood, 2 Nov. 1843.

  9. [9]

    Leahy, President without a Party, 190, 287–288, 295–301; “The Downfall of Van Buren,” and “News from Baltimore!—Van Buren and Cass Both Overboard!,” New-York Daily Tribune (New York City), 31 May 1844, [2]; Bicknell, America 1844, 51–64; Klunder, Lewis Cass, 130–131; Borneman, Polk, 84–87.

    Leahy, Christopher J. President without a Party: The Life of John Tyler. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020.

    New-York Daily Tribune. New York City. 1841–1924.

    Bicknell, John. America 1844: Religious Fervor, Westward Expansion, and the Presidential Election That Transformed the Nation. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2015

    Klunder, Willard Carl. Lewis Cass and the Politics of Moderation. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1996.

    Borneman, Walter R. Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America. New York: Random House, 2008.

  10. [10]

    Richards, Journal, 4 Nov. 1843.

    Richards, Willard. Journals, 1836–1853. Willard Richards, Papers, 1821–1854. CHL. MS 1490, boxes 1–2.

  11. [11]

    Richards, Journal, 4 Nov. 1843; JS, Journal, 4 Nov. 1843. The draft copy of the letter is virtually identical to the featured text aside from two canceled words. (JS, Nauvoo, IL, to Henry Clay et al., 4 Nov. 1843, draft, JS Collection, CHL.)

    Richards, Willard. Journals, 1836–1853. Willard Richards, Papers, 1821–1854. CHL. MS 1490, boxes 1–2.

  12. [12]

    Willard Richards also created a retained copy of this letter, which was kept with JS’s office files. (JS, Nauvoo, IL, to John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, SC, 4 Nov. 1843, copy, JS Collection, CHL.)

  13. [13]

    Calhoun’s Fort Hill plantation is in present-day Clemson, South Carolina.

  14. [14]

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

  15. [15]

    “Correspondence of Gen. Joseph Smith and Hon. J. C. Calhoun,” Times and Seasons, 1 Jan. 1844, 5:393–394; “Correspondence of Gen. Joseph Smith and Hon. J. C. Calhoun,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 10 Jan. 1844, [2]; “Very Important and Curious from the Mormon Empire on the Mississippi,” New York Herald [New York City], 26 Jan. 1844, [2].

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. Letter to Presidential Candidates, 4 November 1843, Draft
*Letter to John C. Calhoun, 4 November 1843
Letter to John C. Calhoun, 4 November 1843, Copy Letter to John C. Calhoun, 4 November 1843, as Published in Times and Seasons Letter to John C. Calhoun, 4 November 1843, as Published in Nauvoo Neighbor Letter to John C. Calhoun, 4 November 1843, as Published in New York Herald History, 1838–1856, volume E-1 [1 July 1843–30 April 1844] “History of Joseph Smith”

Page [1]

, Ill, Nov. 4th 1843
Hon .
Dear Sir.
As we understand that you are a candidate for the Presidency at the ensuing Election; and as the , (Sometimes called Mormons, who now constitute a numerous class in the school politic of this vast Republic,) have been robbed of an immense amount of property, and endured nameless sufferings by the State of , and from her borders have been driven by force of arms, contrary to our National Covenants, and as, in vain, we have Sought redress, by all constitutional, legal, and honorable means, in her courts, her Executive councils, and her Legislative Halls; and as we have petitioned Congress to take cognizance of our sufferings to that without effect, we have judged it wisdom to address you this communication, and Solicit an immediate, Specific, & candid reply to What will be your rule of action, relative to us, as a people, should fortune favor your ascension to the Chief Magistracy.
Most Most Respectfully, Sir, Your Friend and the friend of peace, good order, and Constitutional Rights,
Joseph Smith,
In behalf of the .
Hon [p. [1]]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter to John C. Calhoun, 4 November 1843
ID #
7843
Total Pages
4
Print Volume Location
JSP, D13:247–252
Handwriting on This Page
  • Willard Richards

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    This referred to the upcoming 1844 presidential election. The nominating conventions for the Democratic and Whig parties were held in May 1844 and the general election in November 1844. (“Proceedings of the Whig National Convention, at Baltimore,” New York Herald [New York City], 3 May 1844, [1]; “The Democratic Nominations at Last—Singular Denouement in Baltimore,” New York Herald, 31 May 1844, [2]; “The Result,” Jeffersonian Republican [Stroudsburg, PA], 21 Nov. 1844, [2]; Borneman, Polk, 125.)

    New York Herald. New York City. 1835–1924.

    Jeffersonian Republican. Jefferson City, MO. 1831–1844.

    Borneman, Walter R. Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America. New York: Random House, 2008.

  2. [2]

    Anciently, national covenant referred to the covenant Abraham made with the God of Israel as recorded in Genesis chapter 17 or the covenant that Moses and the children of Israel made with God in Exodus chapter 19. Early American theologians and politicians often drew parallels between the covenanted Israelites and the people living in the American colonies or, later, the United States of America. During the colonial and revolutionary eras, social contracts such as compacts and written constitutions bound a society together through a political covenant. In his 1825 inaugural address, President John Quincy Adams referred to the federal constitution as a “national covenant.” (Genesis 17; Exodus 19:3–8; Winthrop, “Modell of Christian Charity,” [37]–[41]; “423. II Chron. 23:16,” [33], in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online; Paine, Common Sense, 14–15; Langdon, Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States; “Inaugural Address of John Quincy Adams, President of the United States,” American State Papers: Foreign Relations, 5:753.)

    Winthrop, John. “A Modell of Christian Charity,” 1630. New-York Historical Society Museum and Library, New York City.

    Works of Jonathan Edwards Online. Vol. 52, Sermons, Series II, 1737. New Haven, CT: Jonathan Edwards Center, Yale University. Accessed 6 July 2020. http://edwards.yale.edu/ .

    Paine, Thomas. Common Sense; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America, on the Following Interesting Subjects. . . . Philadelphia: R. Bell, 1776.

    Langdon, Samuel. The Republic of the Israelites on Example to the American States. A Sermon, Preached at Concord, in the State of New-Hampshire; before the Honorable General Court at the Annual Election. June 5, 1788. Exeter, NH: Lamson and Ranlet, 1788.

    American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. Edited by Walter Lowrie, Matthew St. Clair Clarke, Walter S. Franklin, Asbury Dickins, and James C. Allen. American State Papers: Foreign Relations. 6 vols. Washington DC: Gales and Seaton, 1832–1834, 1858–1859.

  3. [3]

    Church leaders previously appealed to the Missouri governor, state legislature, and state courts for protection, redress, or justice after episodes of violence and conflict in the 1830s, but those efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. (JS History, vol. A-1, 346–355; Corrill, Brief History, 19; see also “To His Excellency, Daniel Dunklin,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Dec. 1833, 114–115; Edward Partridge et al., Petition, Far West, MO, to the Missouri State Legislature, 10 Dec. 1838, copy, Edward Partridge, Papers, CHL; Journal, of the House of Representatives, of the State of Missouri, 19 Dec. 1838 and 4 Feb. 1839, 128, 367; Historical Introduction to Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839; and “Part 3: 4 November 1838–16 April 1839”.)

    The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.

    Partridge, Edward. Papers, 1818–1839. CHL. MS 892.

    Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Missouri, at the First Session of the Sixteenth General Assembly, Begun and Held at the City of Jefferson on Monday the Thirtieth Day of December, in the Year of Our Lord, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty. Jefferson City, MO: James Lusk, 1851.

  4. [4]

    According to the draft copy of the letter, Richards added additional text to the letter addressed to Martin Van Buren. During a 29 November 1839 meeting in the White House, President Van Buren reportedly informed JS and Elias Higbee that he could not help them. In a subsequent letter to Hyrum Smith and the Nauvoo high council, JS called Van Buren “a fop or a fool, (for he judged our cause before he knew it,) we could find no place to put truth into him.” This experience undoubtedly shaped the tone of the language Richards added to the copy of the letter sent to Van Buren, which read: “Also whether your views or feelings have changed, since the subject matter of this communication, was presented you, in your then official capacity, at Washington, in the year— 41. & by you treated with a coldness, indeferece [indifference], and neglect boding [bordering] on contempt.” (Letter to Hyrum Smith and Nauvoo High Council, 5 Dec. 1839; JS, Nauvoo, IL, to Henry Clay et al., 4 Nov. 1843, draft, JS Collection, CHL.)

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