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Ordinance, 10 June 1844

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Ordinance, 10 June 1844

Source Note

Nauvoo City Council, Ordinance, [, Hancock Co., IL], 10 June 1844; handwriting of , with insertions in handwriting of and unidentified scribe; signature block in handwriting of ; three pages; Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL. Includes endorsement, docket, and notations.
Bifolium measuring 9⅝ × 7¾ inches (24 × 20 cm). A rectangular embossment appears in the top left corner of the recto of the first leaf. The recto and verso of the first leaf and the recto of the second leaf are ruled with twenty-nine printed horizontal lines (now faded). The verso of the second leaf is not ruled and contains unrelated graphite notations. The document was folded for filing.
An endorsement, a docket, and a filing notation were inscribed on the ordinance by , who became the city recorder for in August 1843. The document was presumably kept among Nauvoo city records. In 1845 the city of Nauvoo was disincorporated. Many if not most of the city records were likely included in the various collections of city records listed in an inventory produced by the Church Historian’s Office (later Family and Church History Department) in 1846, when they were packed up along with church records and taken to the Salt Lake Valley. The city records are also listed in inventories of church records created in 1855, 1878, and circa 1904. The Nauvoo, Illinois, records collection was arranged and cataloged by the Family and Church History Department (now CHL) in 2006. The document’s likely inclusion with the city records listed in early church inventories and its later inclusion in the Nauvoo, Illinois, records collection suggest continuous church custody since 1845.

Footnotes

  1. Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 12 Aug. 1843, 20.

  2. “An Act to Repeal the Nauvoo Charter,” 14th General Assembly, 1844–1845, Senate Bill no. 35 (House Bill no. 42), Illinois General Assembly, Enrolled Acts of the General Assembly, 1818–2018, Illinois State Archives, Springfield.

    Illinois General Assembly. Enrolled Acts of the General Assembly, 1818–2012. Illinois State Archives, Springfield.

  3. “Schedule of Church Records. Nauvoo 1846,” [1], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.

    Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.

  4. “Inventory. Historian’s Office. 4th April 1855,” [1]–[2]; “Index of Records and Journals in the Historian’s Office 1878,” [11]; “Index to Papers in the Historians Office,” ca. 1904, 7, Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.

    Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.

  5. See the full bibliographic entry for Nauvoo, IL, Records, 1841–1845, in the CHL catalog.

Historical Introduction

On 10 June 1844, the , Illinois, city council passed an ordinance penalizing libel, slander, and other actions that disturbed the peace. The ordinance was created in direct response to the first issue of the Nauvoo Expositor, which was published on 7 June 1844. The Nauvoo City Council discussed the Expositor as well as the character of various individuals associated with it at the council’s regularly scheduled meeting on 8 June. During the afternoon session, JS, Nauvoo’s mayor, suggested that the city pass an ordinance against misrepresentations and libelous publications “to p[r]eve[n]t all. conspiracy against the peace of the city.” City councilor and , a city councilor and the city’s attorney, were appointed to a committee to write the ordinance. Before the end of the meeting, they produced an initial draft. Phelps read this draft to the city council, after which JS requested that the committee add a preamble. Alderman , who was acting as president pro tempore during the meeting, then suggested that city councilor be added to the drafting committee to write the preamble. City councilor also suggested that the committee add language to “prevent attempts to take away” Nauvoo’s city charter, the legislative act incorporating the city of Nauvoo. Harris then told the committee to make every effort to provide a “full report” on the ordinance, presumably at the council’s next meeting.
Two days later, on 10 June, the city council met again to discuss the Nauvoo Expositor. During the morning session, the committee presented its latest draft of the ordinance, which included a preamble detailing the alleged motives of the Expositor’s proprietors. Later, in the afternoon session, the ordinance was read a second time, and JS and suggested certain additions. It was then read a third time, and JS motioned that the council approve it. JS’s brother , a city councilor, seconded the motion, and the ordinance passed unanimously. , who was again serving as president pro tempore for the meeting, then signed it. The final version declared that anyone guilty of libeling, slandering, or bribing ’s citizens with the intent of raising opposition to the city’s charter or undermining its peace could be fined up to $500, be imprisoned for six months, or be both fined and imprisoned.
The state of already had a statute against libel. However, the act incorporating Nauvoo, often called the charter, permitted the Nauvoo City Council to pass any ordinance deemed “necessary for the peace, benefit, good order, regulation, convenience, and cleanliness” of the city, as long as the ordinance was “not repugnant” to the or Illinois constitutions. By adopting a libel ordinance, the city council ensured that persons responsible for alleged libelous publications, including any future issues of the Expositor, would be prosecuted within Nauvoo’s court system rather than in the state courts.
The libel ordinance, however, was ultimately not used against those involved with the Nauvoo Expositor. Instead, JS suggested that the council suppress the Expositor. The city council then passed a resolution declaring the Expositor’s printing equipment and any copies of the newspaper in its printing office a nuisance and ordering JS as mayor to remove them in a manner of his choosing.
The passage of the libel ordinance apparently encouraged some of the Nauvoo Expositor’s proprietors to abandon . , for instance, claimed that the libel ordinance “was resorted to” so the mayor and city council “might by a form of law rob us of our property, and get us into their prisons to take away our lives.” According to Law, these suspicions led him and others involved with the Expositor to leave Nauvoo on 12 June.
, who served as a clerk for JS, made a fair copy of the ordinance sometime between 8 and 10 June, which was most likely the version presented to the city council on 10 June. An insertion in the ordinance’s text corresponds with an addition that JS requested during the 10 June 1844 city council meeting. A published version of the ordinance appeared in the 12 June 1844 edition of the Nauvoo Neighbor. McEwan’s fair copy is featured here because it was the version of the ordinance passed by the council and signed by .

Footnotes

  1. JS, Journal, 7 June 1844; Nauvoo Expositor, 7 June 1844.

  2. Minutes, 8 June 1844.

  3. Minutes, 8 June 1844; “An Ordinance concerning Libels and for Other Purposes,” 8 June 1844, draft, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL.

  4. The preamble reflects the Nauvoo City Council’s lengthy deliberations about the character and actions of the Nauvoo Expositor’s proprietors and their associates on both 8 and 10 June. (Minutes, 8 June 1844; Minutes, 10 June 1844.)

  5. Minutes, 10 June 1844; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 10 June 1844, 210–211.

  6. An Act Relative to Criminal Jurisprudence [26 Feb. 1833], Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois (1839), p. 220, sec. 120; Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840.

    The Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois: Containing All the Laws . . . Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at Their First Session, Commencing December 1, 1834, and Ending February 13, 1835; and at Their Second Session, Commencing December 7, 1835, and Ending January 18, 1836; and Those Passed by the Tenth General Assembly, at Their Session Commencing December 5, 1836, and Ending March 6, 1837; and at Their Special Session, Commencing July 10, and Ending July 22, 1837. . . . Compiled by Jonathan Young Scammon. Chicago: Stephen F. Gale, 1839.

  7. Minutes, 10 June 1844; Resolution, 10 June 1844.

  8. Law, Diary, 11–12 June 1844, in Cook, William Law, 56.

    Cook, Lyndon W. William Law: Biographical Essay, Nauvoo Diary, Correspondence, Interview. Orem, UT: Grandin Book, 1994.

  9. See JS History, vol. F-1, 133; Nauvoo Registry of Deeds, Record of Deeds, bk. B, pp. 213–214; and Source Note for Military Order to Jonathan Dunham, 10 June 1844.

  10. “An Ordinance concerning Libels, and for Other Purposes,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 12 June 1844, [3].

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. Draft of Ordinance, 8 June 1844 Preamble to Ordinance, between 8 and 10 June 1844 Ordinance, 10 June 1844 Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 1841–1845 Ordinance, 10 June 1844, as Published in Nauvoo Neighbor History, 1838–1856, volume F-1 [1 May 1844–8 August 1844] “History of Joseph Smith”
“scare crow” to frighten the surrounding country in rebellion; mobbing and war; and whereas, while the blood of our brethren, from wells, holes and naked <​prair[i]es​>, and the ravishment of female virtue, from , and the smoke from the altars of infamy, prostituted by , and continued in the full tide of experiment and disgraceful damnation by the very self called fragments of a body <​of​> villians <​degraded men​> that have got up a press in , to destroy the charter of the ; to destroy mormonism, men, women and children, as did, by force of arms; by Fostering Laws that Emmonate from corruption, and betray with a kiss: wherefore to honor the state of and those patriots who gave the charter, and for the benefit, convenience, health and happiness of said :
Sec. 1. Be it ordained by the city council of the city of , that if any person or persons shall write or publish, in said , any false statement, or libel any of the citizen[s] for the purpose of exciting the public mind against the chartered privileges, peace and good order of said ; or shall slander, (according to the definition of slander or libel by [William] Blackstone or [James] Kent <​or the act in the statute of ​>,) any portion of the inhabitants of said , or bribe any portion of the citizens of said , for malic[i]ous purposes; or in any manner or form excite the prejudice of the community against any portion of the citizens of said for evil purposes, he, she, or they shall be deemed disturbers of the peace, and upon conviction before the mayor or municipal court shall be fined in any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars, or imprisoned six months, or both, at the discretion of said mayor or court [p. [2]]
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Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Ordinance, 10 June 1844
ID #
12038
Total Pages
4
Print Volume Location
Handwriting on This Page
  • John McEwan
  • William W. Phelps

Footnotes

  1. John Taylor expressed a similar sentiment during the 8 and 10 June city council meetings. Sylvester Emmons, William Law, and Wilson Law had all served on the Nauvoo City Council. William and Wilson Law were present when the council passed the 14 November 1842 habeas corpus ordinance, and William Law served on the committee that amended it prior to its passage. The Nauvoo Expositor, however, denounced the Nauvoo Municipal Court’s use of the ordinance. (Minutes, 8 June 1844; Minutes, 10 June 1844; Ordinance, 14 Nov. 1842; Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 12 and 14 Nov. 1842, 46–47; Records of Attendance of City Council, 1842–1845, 4, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL; Sylvester Emmons, “Introductory,” Nauvoo Expositor, 7 June 1844, [2]; Editorial, and Francis M. Higbee, “Citizens of Hancock County,” Nauvoo Expositor, 7 June 1844, [3].)

    Nauvoo, IL, Records, 1841–1845. CHL.

  2. This refers to the violence Latter-day Saints experienced during the 1838 conflict with their opponents in Missouri. (“Part 3: 4 November 1838–16 April 1839.”)

  3. Bennett served as mayor of Nauvoo, major general of the Nauvoo Legion, and assistant president to JS before he was excommunicated from the church and publicly disgraced for his alleged sexual misconduct in 1842. (“Joseph Smith Documents from May through August 1842.”)

  4. Cancellation and insertion in the handwriting of William W. Phelps.

  5. The unconditional repeal of Nauvoo’s city charter was one of the stated goals of the Nauvoo Expositor. The only issue of the Expositor contained two articles that advocated this position. (Prospectus of the Nauvoo Expositor [Nauvoo, IL: 10 May 1844], copy at CHL; Editorial, and Francis M. Higbee, “Citizens of Hancock County,” Nauvoo Expositor, 7 June 1844, [3].)

    Nauvoo Expositor Prospectus. Nauvoo, IL: ca. 10 May 1844. Copy at CHL.

  6. These three underlined words play on the surnames of men involved with the Nauvoo Expositor: Foster, Law, and Emmons. (Prospectus of the Nauvoo Expositor [Nauvoo, IL: 10 May 1844], copy at CHL.)

    Nauvoo Expositor Prospectus. Nauvoo, IL: ca. 10 May 1844. Copy at CHL.

  7. See Matthew 26:47–50; Mark 14:43–45; and Luke 22:47–48.

  8. Blackstone, an influential English legal commentator, defined slander as “malicious, scandalous, and slanderous words, tending to . . . damage and derogation” that “may endanger a man by subjecting him to the penalties of the law, may exclude him from society, may impair his trade, or may affect a peer of the realm, a magistrate or one in public trust.” Blackstone defined libels as “malicious defamations of any person, and especially a magistrate, made public by either printing, writing, signs, or pictures, in order to provoke him to wrath, or expose him to public hatred, contempt, and ridicule.” He noted that “the direct tendency of these libels is the breach of the public peace, by stirring up the objects of them to revenge, and perhaps to bloodshed.” (Blackstone, Commentaries, vol. 2, bk. 3, pp. 92–93, 97; bk. 4, pp. 111–112, italics in original.)

    Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England: In Four Books; with an Analysis of the Work. By Sir William Blackstone, Knt. One of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas. In Two Volumes, from the Eighteenth London Edition. . . . 2 vols. New York: W. E. Dean, 1840.

  9. Kent, an influential American legal commentator, defined slander as “falsely and maliciously charging another with the commission of some public offence, or the breach of some public trust, or with any matter in relation to his particular trade or vocation, and which, if true, would render him unworthy of employment; or, lastly, with any other matter or thing, by which special injury is sustained.” He defined libel as “a malicious publication, expressed either in printing or writing, or by signs or pictures, tending either to blacken the memory of one dead, or the reputation of one alive, and expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule.” He further concluded that “a malicious intent towards government, magistrates, or individuals, and an injurious or offensive tendency, must concur to constitute the libel.” (Kent, Commentaries on American Law, 2:13.)

    Kent, James. Commentaries on American Law. Vol. 2. New York: O. Halsted, 1827.

  10. Insertion in the handwriting of William W. Phelps. This insertion was made at JS’s request during the 10 June 1844 city council meeting. Illinois state law, drawing on Kent’s Commentaries on American Law, defined libel as “a malicious defamation, expressed either by printing or by signs or pictures, or the like, tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation, or publish the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him or her to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule.” Illinois law provided that “in all prosecutions for a libel, the truth thereof may be given in evidence in justification, except libels tending to blacken the memory of the dead, or expose the natural defects of the living.” This defense, however, was not acknowledged in Nauvoo’s libel ordinance. Illinois law did not criminalize slander, or defamatory words, although an 1843 legal treatise on slander and libel indicated that if slanderous words had the potential to lead to violence, they could be prosecuted as a breach of the peace. (Minutes, 10 June 1844; An Act Relative to Criminal Jurisprudence [26 Feb. 1833], Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois [1839], p. 220, sec. 120; Starkie and Wendell, Treatise on the Law of Slander and Libel, 2:184–186.)

    The Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois: Containing All the Laws . . . Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at Their First Session, Commencing December 1, 1834, and Ending February 13, 1835; and at Their Second Session, Commencing December 7, 1835, and Ending January 18, 1836; and Those Passed by the Tenth General Assembly, at Their Session Commencing December 5, 1836, and Ending March 6, 1837; and at Their Special Session, Commencing July 10, and Ending July 22, 1837. . . . Compiled by Jonathan Young Scammon. Chicago: Stephen F. Gale, 1839.

    Starkie, Thomas. A Treatise on the Law of Slander and Libel, and Incidentally of Malicious Prosecutions. Vol. 2. Albany, New York: C. Van Benthuysen, 1843.

  11. This may refer to a notice placed in the Nauvoo Expositor by William and Wilson Law. The Law brothers owned a steam mill in Nauvoo, and their advertisement announced that they had “allotted Thursday of every week, to grind TOLL FREE” for “those who through sickness; or other misfortunes, are much limited in their means of procuring bread for their families” until “grain becomes more plentiful after harvest.” (William Law and Wilson Law, “Notice,” Nauvoo Expositor, 7 June 1844, [3], emphasis in original; “Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 1 Aug. 1844, 5:597.)

  12. Illinois state law stipulated that “every person, whether writer or publisher, convicted of this offence [libel], shall be fined in a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars, or imprisoned not exceeding one year.” An earlier draft of the featured city ordinance stipulated only a fine of up to one hundred dollars. The Nauvoo charter gave the mayor’s and aldermen’s courts primary jurisdiction over prosecutions for alleged breaches of city ordinances, while the Nauvoo Municipal Court had appellate jurisdiction. Some of the language in this section of the 10 June libel ordinance—including the declaration that convicted individuals would be deemed “disturbers of the peace,” the extension of concurrent jurisdiction to the mayoral and municipal courts, and the prescribed penalties—mirrored an 1841 ordinance regarding public meetings. (An Act Relative to Criminal Jurisprudence [26 Feb. 1833], Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois [1839], p. 220, sec. 120; “An Ordinance concerning Libels and for Other Purposes,” 8 June 1844, draft, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL; Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 1 Mar. 1841, 12.)

    The Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois: Containing All the Laws . . . Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at Their First Session, Commencing December 1, 1834, and Ending February 13, 1835; and at Their Second Session, Commencing December 7, 1835, and Ending January 18, 1836; and Those Passed by the Tenth General Assembly, at Their Session Commencing December 5, 1836, and Ending March 6, 1837; and at Their Special Session, Commencing July 10, and Ending July 22, 1837. . . . Compiled by Jonathan Young Scammon. Chicago: Stephen F. Gale, 1839.

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