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Sidney Rigdon, Appeal to the American People, 1840

Page 73

Source Note

[], An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri; 1–84 pp.; Cincinnati, OH: Glezen and Shepard, stereotypers and printers, 1840. The copy used herein is held at Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Historical Introduction

While incarcerated at , Missouri, in March 1839, JS addressed a letter to the church “at Illinois and scattered abroad and to in particular,” instructing the Saints to gather up “a knoledge of all the facts and sufferings and abuses put upon them by the people of this .” Edward Partridge responded with an account that became the three opening installments of “A History, of the Persecution, of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints in Missouri,” an eleven-part series published in the church’s newspaper, Times and Seasons, between December 1839 and October 1840. “A History, of the Persecution” receives comprehensive treatment in volume 2 of the Histories series of The Joseph Smith Papers and is available on this website.
may have intended to tell the entire story himself, but he fell ill shortly after publication of “A History, of the Persecution” began and died on 27 May 1840. Prompted by Partridge’s illness and subsequent death, the editors of the Times and Seasons, and , sought elsewhere for source materials to continue the series. It is probable that they composed the fourth installment to provide a brief transition from Partridge’s account, which ends in 1836, and the conflicts in and adjoining counties in 1838. The fifth and seventh installments reprinted passages from ’s History of the Late Persecutions Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons (Detroit: Dawson and Bates, 1839). In May 1840, the sixth installment reprinted passages from ’s eighty-four page pamphlet, An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri (Cincinnati: Glezan and Shepard, 1840). More of Rigdon’s work was reprinted in the eighth through tenth installments, published from July to September 1840. The series concluded with an eleventh installment in the October 1840 issue, featuring General ’s callous speech to the Saints after their surrender at , Missouri, in November 1838.
A manuscript version of ’s Appeal to the American People, referred to as the “petition draft” titled “To the Publick” and endorsed by JS, Rigdon, and , was read to a conference of Saints in , Illinois, on 1 November 1839. The conference voted to approve its publication in the name of the church. and then collaborated to arrange for publication of the text in late 1839 and early 1840. Though no author is named on the title page, Rigdon was acknowledged as author when the pamphlet was advertised in the Times and Seasons in 1840 and 1841. JS and Elias Higbee had some expectation that funds from the sale of the publication would help defray costs of their trip to in late 1839. In July 1840, a second edition was printed by Shepard & Stearns in to raise funds for Orson Hyde and ’s mission to .
Although many of the events reported in ’s pamphlet can be corroborated from other sources, his chronology is often inaccurate. (Consult the annotation in Histories, Volume 2 for correction to portions published as part of “A History, of the Persecutions.”) However, his account contains the text of several significant documents. Among these are JS’s 5 September 1838 affidavit concerning the 7 August 1838 visit to and those of and and regarding the massacre. Consequently, though in many respects Rigdon’s document is more advocacy than history, it offers access to some material not readily found elsewhere.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Letter to the Church and Edward Partridge, 20 March 1839 [D&C 123:1, 6].

  2. [2]

    Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 103–104, 124.

    Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Statement, circa 1 November 1839–B *Affidavit, 5 September 1838 [ State of Missouri v. JS et al. for Riot ]

Page 17

entered in other parts of the , in such parts of the as had come into market; besides, a large number of improvements were bought, under the expectation of getting pre-emption rights. The mob spirit which first made its appearance in , for a season seemed to sleep, and there was no hindrance offered to the settlements, which were increasing very fast. All parties remained quiet; many of those, who had been engaged in the first mob in , came forward and made confession of their wrongs; and all, so far as was concerned, was peace: but , , Clinton and Platt kept up a continual threatening, until it could not be borne any longer: and the saints openly declared that it should cease, for they would suffer it no longer. No person should come into the streets of as they had been accustomed to do, and there threaten the people with mobs. This had the desired effect; it ceased, and no persons ventured to do so any more. But the before mentioned counties kept up a continual threatening at home, whenever they saw any of the people of .
This order of things continued without any violence, until the election which took place in August of 1838. The saints had been in from the Aug. of 1836, making two years.
Threatenings were making that they should not vote at the election. Not only was it threatened that they should not vote in , but there were insinuations thrown out, that there would be a mob in to prevent the people there from voting. There were no great fears, however, entertained that any attempt of the kind would be made. The election at last came on; and the saints went to discharge what they considered, not only a privilege, but a duty also. One of the candidates for representative in , was by the name of , a very ignorant, ambitious creature, who was determined to carry his election if possible, and that at all hazards, whether the people were willing to elect him or not. Those who were not willing to vote for him, he determined by the force of mob law, to prevent from voting.
It may not however be amiss here to give an account [p. 17]
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Editorial Title
Sidney Rigdon, Appeal to the American People, 1840
ID #
7830
Total Pages
84
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