Part 2: February 1844

In February 1844, as tension continued between the and other citizens of , Illinois, JS devoted considerable attention to fostering peace. For example, he wrote a letter to the editor of the Nauvoo Neighbor recommending that ’s secular newspaper take a noncombative approach in engaging with the Warsaw Signal, a newspaper published in nearby , Illinois, that was antagonistic toward JS and the church. Furthermore, in response to a letter from governor to Hancock County residents urging peace, JS commissioned an editorial that insisted on the Latter-day Saints’ civil rights while praising Ford’s efforts to mediate and de-escalate the hostilities between the Saints and their neighbors. In addition, the Nauvoo City Council, led by JS as mayor, repealed two ordinances it had passed in December 1843 in the aftermath of the kidnappings of and in Hancock County. Both ordinances severely limited the authority of law officers coming to Nauvoo from elsewhere to arrest individuals in the city. These ordinances were intended to protect JS and church members in Nauvoo from illegal detainment, but the ordinances elicited substantial criticism from other Hancock County residents who believed that the ordinances enabled JS to evade the law. The city council apparently hoped that repealing these controversial ordinances would decrease hostility toward JS and the church.

JS’s presidential campaign also began to take shape in February. After agreeing to run for president of the during a meeting of church leaders in late January, JS instructed , one of his scribes, to draft a pamphlet outlining JS’s political positions. A week later, Phelps finished the pamphlet, titled General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, and its content was approved publicly by JS and the church at an 8 February meeting. The meeting occasioned political speeches, including a discourse JS gave on his reasons for seeking the presidency. These reasons included a plan to institute policy changes that would protect religious minorities such as the Latter-day Saints.

Even as JS embarked on this campaign, his critics publicly responded to his earlier pleas for help from the federal government and others. For instance, in an editorial addressed to JS in the Warsaw Signal, replied to JS’s public letter to prospective presidential candidate . Sharp argued caustically that in seeking redress from the federal government for the property church members lost in during the 1830s, JS was advocating for a government action that would effectively amount to the persecution of Missouri. In addition, an unidentified correspondent claiming to be from replied to General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, in which JS called for the citizens of Vermont, his native state, to help the Latter-day Saints obtain redress for their lost property in Missouri. The correspondent mocked JS and insisted that if Vermonters took up arms, it would be to suppress the Saints and not to protect them.

Amid his efforts to promote peace and protection for church members, JS and other church leaders continued to formulate alternative plans for safeguarding the Saints. One such plan involved relocating the main body of the church’s membership outside the . , , and other church members working in the of wrote to JS and other church leaders in in mid-February and recommended that they consider moving many of the Saints to the . These letters, which arrived in Nauvoo in March, would be the catalyst to the formation of the .

JS received letters from several correspondents in February. He had met some of these individuals previously. Some wrote to invite him and his wife to visit , Illinois. Two church members in wrote to JS apologizing for different ways in which they had wronged him. Other correspondents JS had never met. For instance, he received a letter from a man in desiring to move to Nauvoo as well as a letter from a resident about the alleged misconduct of a missionary there.

Part 2 features twenty-one documents. In addition to the documents described above, the part includes a notice published in the Times and Seasons from JS and , JS’s brother and fellow church leader, stating that Hiram Brown had been “cut off from the church” for “preaching polygamy” as a missionary in . Part 2 also includes a deed by which JS transferred all his property in to his uncle , a summons calling for JS to appear before the Circuit Court to answer a trespass complaint, a discourse by JS on keeping the commandments of God, and a letter from JS’s in , Ohio, regarding the status of his property there.