Footnotes
While JS likely authored many of the paper’s editorial passages, John Taylor reportedly assisted him in writing content. No matter who wrote individual editorial pieces, JS assumed editorial responsibility for all installments naming him as editor except the 15 February issue. (Woodruff, Journal, 19 Feb. 1842; Historical Introduction to Times and Seasons, 1 Mar. 1842.)
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.
See “Editorial Method”.
In the six years following the Panic of 1837, many banks in the western United States struggled to remain solvent. A variety of factors contributed to the State Bank of Illinois suspending its operations in February 1842, including declining specie reserves and mounting debt. The bank suspended specie payments in 1838 and did so again by December 1839. (Ford, History of Illinois, 223–225; Dowrie, Development of Banking in Illinois, 98–109; Garnett, State Banks of Issue in Illinois, 28–38; see also Letter to Horace Hotchkiss, 10 Mar. 1842; and Horace Hotchkiss, Fair Haven, CT, to JS, Nauvoo, IL, 9 May 1842, JS Collection, CHL.)
Ford, Thomas. A History of Illinois, from Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847. Containing a Full Account of the Black Hawk War, the Rise, Progress, and Fall of Mormonism, the Alton and Lovejoy Riots, and Other Important and Interesting Events. Chicago: S. C. Griggs; New York: Ivison and Phinney, 1854.
Dowrie , George William. The Development of Banking in Illinois, 1817–1863. University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, vol. 11, no. 4. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1913.
Garnett, Charles Hunter. State Banks of Issue in Illinois. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1898.
Discussing a recommendation to introduce platinum coins into the national currency, a newspaper editorial noted, “In its value it is intermediate between gold and silver, being about one-third as valuable as gold, and five times as much so as silver.” The editor asserted that platinum “would form a most suitable material for coins of the different denominations, from one to five dollars.” (“Platinum,” Daily Ohio Statesman [Columbus], 3 Oct. 1837, [2].)
Daily Ohio Statesman. Columbus. 1837–1857.
See Mark 11:15; Matthew 21:12; and Revelation, 8 July 1838–E [D&C 117:16]. Shave was nineteenth-century slang meaning “to strip; to oppress by extortion; to fleece.” The term shaver was often applied to money brokers who “purchase [bank]notes at more than legal interest.” (“Shave,” in American Dictionary [1828]; “Shaver,” in Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, 295.)
An American Dictionary of the English Language: Intended to Exhibit, I. the Origin, Affinities and Primary Signification of English Words, as far as They Have Been Ascertained. . . . Edited by Noah Webster. New York: S. Converse, 1828.
Bartlett, John Russell. Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States. New York: Bartlett and Welford, 1848.
In the wake of the Panic of 1837, American political parties engaged in a particularly heated debate over the nation’s monetary system. Democrats argued that financial transactions should be conducted largely in hard money (that is, gold and silver specie) rather than through banknotes or paper currency, which they claimed had led to irresponsible financial speculation and economic instability. During the long financial recession of the late 1830s and early 1840s, banks across the nation—including the State Bank of Illinois—were forced to call in debts and occasionally suspend specie payments to prevent patrons from depleting the institutions’ reserves (rendering those with banknotes temporarily unable to access hard money). By the time the State Bank of Illinois suspended its operations in February 1842, the value of its notes had significantly depreciated (by April the notes had lost nearly 50 percent of their face value). It was likely for these reasons that JS and other church members concluded that gold and silver specie was “the only safe money a man can keep these times.” (Holt, Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, 66–67; Dowrie, Development of Banking in Illinois, 103; Letter to Edward Hunter, 9 and 11 Mar. 1842.)
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.
Dowrie , George William. The Development of Banking in Illinois, 1817–1863. University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, vol. 11, no. 4. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1913.
In February 1831 the Daily National Intelligencer published a letter in which former president and then–Massachusetts congressman John Quincy Adams asserted that platinum should be utilized to mint an “intermediate coin of proportional value between gold and silver.” (John Quincy Adams, Letter, Washington DC, 7 Feb. 1841, in Daily National Intelligencer [Washington DC], 9 Feb. 1831, [3].)
Daily National Intelligencer. Washington DC. 1800–1869.
Responding to a flood of antislavery petitions mailed to members of Congress in the mid-1830s, the United States House of Representatives instituted a procedural “gag rule” in May 1836 that tabled all antislavery petitions without discussion. John Quincy Adams argued that the gag rule violated the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances,” and campaigned vigorously to have the rule repealed. (Adams, Letters from John Quincy Adams to His Constituents, 5–9; Hoffer, John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule, chap. 2.)
Adams, John. Letters from John Quincy Adams to His Constituents of the Twelfth Congres- sional District in Massachusetts. To Which Is Added His Speech in Congress, Delivered February 9, 1837. Edited by John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1837.
Hoffer, Peter Charles. John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule, 1835–1850. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.