History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

THE COUNTRY IN ARMS. 171
stroyed the establishment, tearing clown the presses
and throwing the type into the street. 27 For this act
the proprietors obtained from the authorities of the
town of Carthage, some twenty miles distant, a warrant
for the arrest of Joseph Smith, which was placed
in the hands of the Carthage constable to be served.
It was a proceeding not at all to the taste of the
Mormons that their mayor should be summoned for
misdemeanor before the magistrate of another town,
and Smith refused to go. He was willing to be tried
before a state tribunal. Meanwhile the offenders
were brought before the municipal court of Nauvoo,
on a writ of habeas corpus, and after examination
were discharged. The cry was then raised throughout
the country that Joseph Smith and associates, public
offenders, ensconced among their troops in the
stronghold of Nauvoo, defied the law, refusing to respond
to the call of justice; whereupon the men of
Illinois, to the number of two or three thousand, some
coming even from Missouri, rallied to the support of
the Carthage constable, and stood ready, as the} T said,
not only to arrest Joe Smith, but to burn his town and
kill every man, woman, and child in it.
As the forces of the enemy enlarged and grew yet
more and more demonstrative in their wrath, the town
prepared for defence, the Nauvoo Legion being called
out and placed under arms, by instructions from Governor
Ford to Joseph Smith, as general in command.
This gave rise to a report that they were about to
make a raid on the neighboring gentile settlements. 23
"Letter of John S. Fullmer to the New York Herald, dated Nauvoo, Oct.
30, 1844 (but not published until several years later). A copy of it will be found
in Utah Tracts, ix. p. 7. Smith had been elected mayor on the resignation of
John C. Bennett April 19, 1842. Mackay, The Mormons, 168, says: 'A body of
the prophet's adherents, to the number of two hundred and upward, sallied forth
in obedience to this order, and proceeding to the office of the Expositor, speedily
razed it to the ground. ' Remy states that ' an order to destroy the journal signed
by Joseph was immediately put into execution by a police officer, who proceeded
the same day to break up the presses.' Journey, i. 3S9. Ford declares
that the marshal aided by a portion of the legion executed his warrant by destroying
the press and scattering the type and other materials of the office.
Message to III. Sen., 14th Ass. 1st Sess., 4.
28 'At a meeting of the citizens of Hancock co. held at Carthage, on the