Footnotes
Willard Richards, who became JS’s secretary in 1842, inscribed two dockets on the letter. On 4 February 1846, he finished boxing up papers and books belonging to JS and the church before migrating to the Salt Lake Valley, making it likely that Foster’s letter was filed sometime in that four-year period. (JS, Journal, 21 Dec. 1842; Richards, Journal, 4 Apr. 1846; JS History, vol. D-1, 1485.)
Richards, Willard. Journals, 1836–1853. Willard Richards, Papers, 1821–1854. CHL. MS 1490, boxes 1–2.
Johnson, Register of the Joseph Smith Collection, 8.
Johnson, Jeffery O. Register of the Joseph Smith Collection in the Church Archives, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City: Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1973.
Footnotes
See Historical Introduction to Letter of Introduction from Sidney Rigdon, 9 Nov. 1839.
The group left Quincy on 1 November 1839. According to Foster’s reminiscence written more than three decades later, Foster met JS, Rigdon, and Higbee when the group stopped near Quincy at Benjamin Wilber’s house in Kingston, Illinois, where Foster had been boarding and practicing medicine. (Historical Introduction to Recommendation from Quincy, IL, Branch, between 20 Oct. and 1 Nov. 1839; Robert D. Foster, “A Testimony of the Past,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald, 15 Apr. 1875, 225.)
Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.
Letter of Introduction from Sidney Rigdon, 9 Nov. 1839. Recalling JS’s invitation more than three decades later, Foster wrote: “I was told by Joseph Smith, the Prophet, that if I was willing to obey the will of God and be obedient to his commandments, I must quit my practice and start the next day with them to the city of Washington, to aid them in their mission and minister to Elder Sydney Rigdon, who was very sick at that time. So, in obedience to this mandate, I suddenly closed my practice, and started the next morning, in company with these gentlemen, to visit the chief magistrate of the Union at the federal city.” (Robert D. Foster, “A Testimony of the Past,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald, 15 Apr. 1875, 225.)
Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.
When JS and Foster left Washington DC, Higbee remained to oversee the church’s petitioning efforts to Congress. Rigdon had joined JS, Higbee, and Foster in Philadelphia around 14 January 1840. His poor health, however, prevented him from returning to Washington with JS and Higbee. (Letter from Elias Higbee, 20 Feb. 1840–A; Letter from Sidney Rigdon, 3 Apr. 1840; Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 14 Jan. 1840, 2.)
JS and Foster parted sometime in mid- or late February 1840.
William Smith, JS’s brother, moved to Plymouth, Illinois, in 1839. (JS, Journal, 15–17 June 1839.)
Joseph Smith Sr. had been ill since fleeing Missouri in winter 1838. Describing his condition in late 1839 and early 1840, Lucy Mack Smith wrote that he “was very feeble his cough increased and he became so weak that I was often under the necessity of lifting [him] from his bed.” (Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 18, [1].)
According to a letter JS wrote later that year, spring, fall, and winter were seasons of relative health in the Commerce area. He termed summer “the sickly season,” meaning the time in which residents of the area experienced the most illness. (Letter to Quorum of the Twelve, 15 Dec. 1840.)
JS delivered one of these two discourses in the Commerce area on 1 March 1840. In that discourse, JS stated he felt that President Martin Van Buren had “treated them with great disrespect and neglect” and that missionaries in the eastern United States were having great success. It is unknown when JS delivered the other discourse. In letters home in late 1839, JS reported that the church’s delegates to the federal government were well received by many in Congress and that Washington residents listened to them with great interest. (Discourse, 1 Mar. 1840; Letter to Hyrum Smith and Nauvoo High Council, 5 Dec. 1839; Letter to Seymour Brunson and Nauvoo High Council, 7 Dec. 1839.)
“The great political question” almost certainly refers to the partisan divide between Democrats and Whigs. Although the two parties’ platforms differed in several key ways, the most pronounced difference was that the Whigs promoted a system of internal improvements sponsored by a strong federal government that balanced power between its three branches, and the Democrats insisted on granting greater power—and the responsibility for internal improvements—to state governments. The Democrats also insisted on states’ rights, which influenced the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s decision not to consider fully the church’s memorial to Congress. Therefore, the turn in political affiliation that JS mentioned here was a switch of a great number of the Latter-day Saints from the Democratic Party to the Whig Party. (See Holt, Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, 28–49; and Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 270–271; see also Historical Introduction to Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840.)
Holt, Michael F. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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.
When the Senate Committee on the Judiciary questioned Higbee about the political affiliation of church members in general, he responded that “there were as many democrats turned against us, as whigs; and indeed less liberality and political freedom was manifested by them [the Democrats], for one whig Paper came out decidedly in our favor.” (Letter from Elias Higbee, 22 Feb. 1840.)
The church was denied redress by a Congress led by a Democratic majority, a Senate committee comprising two Democrats and three Whigs, and a Democratic president. However, several Democrats in Illinois and in the United States Congress supported JS, Rigdon, and Higbee in their petitioning efforts. These included James Adams and John B. Weber, who were lobbying the Illinois General Assembly in behalf of the Saints; representatives Zadok Casey and John Reynolds; and senators John M. Robinson and Richard M. Young. (Letter to Hyrum Smith and Nauvoo High Council, 5 Dec. 1839; Letter to Seymour Brunson and Nauvoo High Council, 7 Dec. 1839; Letter from James Adams, 4 Jan. 1840; Letter from John B. Weber, 6 Jan. 1840.)
More than three decades later, Foster recounted that Henry Clay “told us that we would never get any redress under that [the Van Buren] administration; that we had better do all we could to get a better administration, then we would get a chance.” (Robert D. Foster, “A Testimony of the Past,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald, 15 Apr. 1875, 227.)
Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.
JS either had tasked Foster with keeping his journal during their travels throughout the eastern United States or desired to access Foster’s journal in order to record the details of the trip in his own personal record. Years later, the compilers of the manuscript history of the church reported JS declaring, “I depended on Dr Foster to keep my daily journal during this journey but he has failed me.” (Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, 4 Mar. 1840, 5.)
In May 1840, the Salt River Journal reported that there were between two and three thousand people who attended the church’s April general conference. (“Latest from the Mormons,” Salt River Journal [Bowling Green, MO], 16 May 1840, [1].)
Salt River Journal. Bowling Green, MO. 1840–1841.