In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, newspaper editors exchanged issues of their papers with one another for free through the postal service. They also reprinted news from one another’s newspapers. (Pasley, Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic, 8–9.)

Pasley, Jeffrey L. “The Tyranny of Printers”: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001.

See Esther 7:9–10.

It is unclear if the writer of this letter was referring to specific instances in which JS made such comments while living in Ohio or Missouri or just to general sentiments reported by JS’s critics. For instance, in a Missouri trial in 1838, church dissenter Sampson Avard claimed that on several occasions JS stated that “he considered the U. States rotten” and “compared the Mormon Church to the little stone spoken of by the Propt Daniel.” (Sampson Avard, Testimony, Richmond, MO, Nov. 1838, State of Missouri v. JS et al. for Treason and Other Crimes [Mo. 5th Jud. Cir. 1838], in State of Missouri, “Evidence.”)

This sentence is likely a reference to a speech Rigdon delivered in Far West, Missouri, on 4 July 1838 in which he asserted that the Latter-day Saints would no longer endure persecutions from mobs. Church leaders subsequently published the speech as a pamphlet. The speech, which celebrated American Independence Day, extolled America’s republican heritage of freedom. It did not declare any explicit political independence for the Saints but did declare independence from mobs and persecution, even promising military reprisal. (Oration Delivered by Mr. S. Rigdon, 12; see also Baugh, Call to Arms, 87–89.)

Baugh, Alexander L. “A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri.” PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1996. Also available as A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri, Dissertations in Latter-day Saint History (Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History; BYU Studies, 2000).

Church leaders had previously addressed allegations that they directed church members to steal from their neighbors or to willfully act against the laws of the state of Missouri. In October 1838, church members organized into companies and launched preemptive attacks on places that harbored vigilantes who were preparing to assault the Saints. During the preemptive attacks, some Latter-day Saint combatants confiscated corn, cattle, and hogs for the Saints’ use. Church members viewed the practice as military provisioning that was in keeping with generally accepted practices of war. (Foote, Autobiography, 30; Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839; Bill of Damages, 4 June 1839.)

Foote, Warren. Autobiography, not before 1903. Warren Foote, Papers, 1837–1941. CHL. MS 1123, fd. 1.

JS did not fully enumerate church members’ lost lives and property in Missouri in the Green Mountain Boys pamphlet. In their memorial to the United States Congress, however, JS, Sidney Rigdon, and Elias Higbee detailed the persecution of Latter-day Saints in Missouri. They mentioned twenty-two Saints who were killed in the Missouri conflicts, estimated that fifteen thousand Saints had fled the state, and valued their lost property in Missouri at approximately $2 million. In addition, JS, Rigdon, and Higbee submitted affidavits with the memorial that itemized the lost property of church members in Missouri. (General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, 21 Nov.–ca. 3 Dec. 1843; Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840.)

Critics of JS such as La Roy Sunderland asserted that “all who submit to Mormon dictation must yield up all their earthly property which they do not need for their support” and that once church members handed over their property, church leaders would continue to hold it even if members wanted to leave the church. The Saints did consecrate property when they were attempting to establish the city of Zion in Jackson County, Missouri, from 1831 to 1833. This consecration was in accordance with a February 1831 revelation that directed members to donate their money, goods, and land to the church, after which they would receive back an inheritance, or stewardship, based on their circumstances, needs, and wants. Bishops were to administer the law of consecration by receiving consecrated properties, determining stewardships, and managing surplus property in church storehouses. In May 1833, JS informed Edward Partridge, bishop in Missouri, that even if someone was cut off from the church, “his inheritance is his still,” although whatever property had been “consecrated to the poor, for their benefit, & inheritance, & stewardship, he cannot obtain again by the law of the Lord.” A July 1838 revelation eliminated the requirement of an initial consecration of property but instructed church members to give all “their surplus property” to the bishop and then a “tenth of all their interest annually” thereafter. (Sunderland, Mormonism Exposed and Refuted, 22, 33; Revelation, 9 Feb. 1831 [D&C 42:30–34]; Revelation, 20 May 1831 [D&C 51:3–4]; Letter to Edward Partridge, 2 May 1833; Revelation, 8 July 1838–C [D&C 119:1, 4]; see also Lorenzo Barnes, Wilmington, DE, 8 Sept. 1839, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons, Dec. 1839, 1:27–28; and “Let Every Man Learn His Duty,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Jan. 1833, [5].)

Sunderland, La Roy. Mormonism Exposed and Refuted. New York City: Piercy and Reed, 1838.

Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.

While some Latter-day Saints in Missouri were able to arrange for the sale of their land—often at a loss—before leaving the state, others simply had to abandon their property when they fled. In many cases, church members owned only the preemption rights to land that the United States had not yet made available for sale. (Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840.)