Part 1: March–June 1844
The minutes in this section begin with a 10
March 1844
meeting
called by JS to discuss letters just arrived
from the in , where men supplying timber for construction of
the
and
the neared the end of their assignment. Discussion of
the proposals contained in the letters provided the context for
organizing the Council of Fifty the following day. The
final
minutes in this section record a brief session on 31 May 1844 convened to hear ’s report of his council-assigned mission to
American Indians in Wisconsin Territory. That meeting adjourned sine
die—that is, without another meeting being scheduled—and the council
never again met under the direction of JS, who with his brother was murdered less than a month later.
JS convened the Council of Fifty or Kingdom of God on
eighteen days for a total of at least twenty-nine council meetings,
twenty-five of which are captured in ’s official
record. With only a few
exceptions, the initial minutes for these meetings were created
first by Clayton, the clerk of the council, who wrote notes on loose
paper during the meetings, and all were later inscribed by him into
the small bound book he procured to constitute a permanent record.
The first four entries of the record book (
10,
11,
13, and
14 March) bear the marks
of having been later reconstructed from Clayton’s memory and diary.
After 14 March 1844, the minutes
that Clayton copied into the small bound book appear to be a fair
copy of rough notes or minutes taken at the time of the
meetings.
Several measures that occupied the council from March through May 1844 had their genesis outside the council; although they had been discussed and to some degree set in motion earlier in other venues, the newly formed council became the primary forum for managing them. These included overseeing JS’s 1844 presidential campaign, uniting American Indians and seeking to make allies of them, and finding a new home beyond the boundaries of the where Mormons could create a government of their own. From the perspective of council members, these initiatives and related discussions in the council were part of a broader strategy to obtain safety and refuge for the church and its members. These minutes preserve discussions about the meaning of the kingdom of God, about theocracy (or what Latter-day Saints sometimes termed “theodemocracy”), and about JS’s perspectives on government and the U.S. Constitution.
In addition to the minutes, inscribed
into the record book copies of two April
1844
letters
discussed in the council on 13
May and a
list of the
membership of the council as it stood on the final day of
adjournment, arranged by age. He closed the 1844 record with a
retrospective
account of some of JS’s activities
during June 1844, including
increasing opposition, JS’s incarceration in , Illinois,
and his mob murder on 27 June
while awaiting trial.
Following the last meeting of the council with JS on
31 May 1844, the council
did not assemble again until
4 February 1845, when it
was reorganized under ’s
direction.