On 10 April 1844, addressed a letter from , Illinois, to JS and the other members of the in , Illinois, giving notice of his intended absence from the next day’s council meetings. The Council of Fifty was an assembly chaired by JS that included about fifty men concerned with setting up a theocratic government to secure the protection of the ’ rights and to prepare for the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. Babbitt was admitted as a member of the council on 26 March 1844 and attended subsequent meetings on 4 and 5 April. Because he attended on 5 April, Babbitt knew that the council would reconvene at the newly dedicated on Thursday, 11 April, at nine o’clock in the morning. Regular attendance and punctuality were expected at these meetings. In deference to this expectation—and because he had been late to the 5 April meeting—Babbitt felt compelled to inform JS and the other council members that he would be absent on 11 April and would support any decisions the council made so that it could proceed with official business.

It is unknown how transmitted this notice the roughly twenty-five miles from to , a distance that would have taken most of a day to travel. He would not have had time to send the letter by post, since he composed it to be read at a meeting the next morning. He may have asked or —council members who also lived in the Macedonia area—to take the note with them, although both were reportedly absent from the 11 April meeting as well. The letter arrived in Nauvoo in time for the morning meeting on 11 April, which began as scheduled in the at nine o’clock. According to the minutes recorded by council clerk , JS—the standing chair of the council—read the note aloud at the start of the meeting, after which the council excused Babbitt. During the course of the two sessions held on 11 April, JS introduced the council’s political slogan, reiterated that membership in the council was not limited to members of the church, and affirmed his belief that the Constitution of the insufficiently protected the rights of oppressed peoples.

JS likely gave ’s letter to , who may have made a loose-leaf copy of the letter along with his minutes of the 11 April meeting. Regardless, Clayton recorded the letter as part of the minutes in the first volume of the bound Council of Fifty record, likely in February 1845. Neither Babbitt’s original letter nor a loose-leaf copy is extant. The version recorded in the minute book is featured here.