On 8 February 1844, JS attended a political meeting of some of the citizens of , Illinois, and spoke on his candidacy for president of the . He had agreed to run for president ten days earlier, on 29 January, in a meeting of the and other leaders. Since that meeting, JS had worked with his scribe to compose a pamphlet, General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, that set forth his political positions.

The 8 February 1844 meeting occurred in a room above JS’s , almost certainly in the main upstairs room, which often accommodated larger meetings. After opened the meeting by reading the pamphlet, JS addressed the audience. He explained his reasons for running for president, insisting that it was necessary because he and his fellow Latter-day Saints in the repeatedly had been denied their rights as American citizens. Accordingly, his campaign was part of a larger effort to pursue any legal avenue that might result in the protection of the church and its members. Following JS’s discourse, apostles and each spoke. Those at the meeting then unanimously indicated their approval of General Smith’s Views.

Scribe briefly summarized the meeting in JS’s journal but did not describe what any of the speakers, including JS, said in their respective discourses. However, recorded JS’s discourse and other details of the meeting in his journal. Woodruff’s account provides a mixture of content summary, written in the third person, and quotations of JS’s remarks, written in the first person as if spoken by JS himself. A brief account of the meeting also appeared in the Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor. Woodruff’s account—which is the most complete—is the version featured here.