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Letter to Central Committee of the National Reform Association, 16 May 1844

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Letter to Central Committee of the National Reform Association, 16 May 1844

Source Note

JS, Letter, , Hancock Co., IL, to Central Committee of the National Reform Association (, , , , , , and ), [, New York Co., NY], 16 May 1844. Featured version published in “Minutes of a Convention Held in the City of Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, May 17th, 1844,” Nauvoo Neighbor (Nauvoo, Hancock Co., IL), 22 May 1844, vol. 2, no. 6, [2]. For more complete source information, see the source note for Notice, 26 Aug. 1843.

Historical Introduction

On 16 May 1844, JS wrote a letter from , Illinois, to members of the Central Committee of the National Reform Association in explaining the actions he planned to take relative to public lands should he be elected president of the . JS had been nominated as a candidate for the presidency in January 1844, and in February he had published a pamphlet on his political views and sent it to various government officials, newspaper editors, and other individuals.
The National Reform Association was founded in March 1844. Like many other critics of the treatment of wage laborers in the during the nineteenth century, the National Reform Association claimed that the country’s growing system of industrial capitalism stripped workers of their independence, lowering them to a slave-like status. The association called for the federal government to remedy the situation through the free and equitable distribution of western lands.
In March 1844 the National Reform Association elected an interim Central Committee to govern the organization until a permanent committee was chosen. Representatives of this Central Committee—, , , , , , and —wrote to JS on 20 April as part of the committee’s campaign to solicit the 1844 presidential candidates’ views on “making the Public Lands free to American Citizens who might desire to cultivate them.” This letter expressed the association’s concern that despite the nation’s rising wealth and the advantages afforded by improvements in transportation and machinery, “the compensation for useful labour” was becoming “less and less.” The Central Committee blamed these trends on the monopolization of land ownership, “which places labor at the mercy of capital.” To remedy this situation, the committee proposed to stop the sale of public land and instead allow individuals to occupy it without charge, while prohibiting anyone “from becoming possessed of more than a limited quantity.” The committee hoped that by doing so, the country could “gradually establish an equilibrium between the agricultural and other useful occupations, that would ensure to all full employment and fair compensation for their labor.”
In his 16 May response, JS proposed increasing the earnings of farmers and mechanics, placing a tariff on imported goods, and encouraging the American people to request Congress to create a uniform land law. JS, however, indicated that he intended to act upon these proposals only after the more concerning problems of slavery and government excesses were addressed.
The next day, 17 May, supporters of JS’s presidential campaign gathered in his office to hold a political convention. During this meeting, JS’s correspondence with the Central Committee was read. The convention’s minutes—which included copies of the letters to and from the Central Committee—were subsequently published in the 22 May issue of the Nauvoo Neighbor. JS’s letter was also read at the 18 July meeting of the National Reform Association, although no reaction to its content was recorded. The Working Man’s Advocate, an organ of the association, published JS’s response in its 3 August issue. While the paper’s editor made no comment on the substance of JS’s letter, he did state that it was “an interesting historical item.”
No manuscript copy of JS’s letter has been located. The Nauvoo Neighbor published the earliest typescript of the letter, which is featured here.

Footnotes

  1. Minutes and Discourse, 29 Jan. 1844; General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, ca. 26 Jan.–7 Feb. 1844; JS, Journal, 24 and 27 Feb. 1844.

  2. “Third General Working Men’s Meeting—Adoption of the Constitution,” Working Man’s Advocate (New York City), 30 Mar. 1844, [3].

    Working Man’s Advocate. New York City. 1830–184?.

  3. Foner, Free Soil, xviii–xxv; Earle, Jacksonian Antislavery, 58–61.

    Foner, Eric. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

    Earle, Jonathan H. Jacksonian Antislavery and the Politics of Free Soil, 1824–1854. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

  4. When it was formed, the interim Central Committee comprised John Commerford, Charles P. Gardner, Daniel Foster, Egbert Manning, John Windt, Robert Beattie, James Maxwell, Mike Walsh, Daniel Witter, W. L. Makenze, James A. Pyne, F. Byrdsall, Thomas A. Devyr, and George Evans. (“Third General Working Men’s Meeting—Adoption of the Constitution,” Working Man’s Advocate [New York City], 30 Mar. 1844, [3]; see also “National Reform Association. Constitution,” Working Man’s Advocate, 6 Apr. 1844, [1].)

    Working Man’s Advocate. New York City. 1830–184?.

  5. Letter from Central Committee of the National Reform Association, 20 Apr. 1844; “Answers of Presidential Candidates,” Working Man’s Advocate (New York City), 3 Aug. 1844, [1]. Although the Central Committee wrote to five presidential candidates, only those independent of the two main political parties responded. (“Mr. Birney’s Letter,” Working Man’s Advocate, 27 July 1844, [3]; “Mr. Brooks’s Letter,” Working Man’s Advocate, 10 Aug. 1844, [3]; “The Lights of History,” Working Man’s Advocate, 26 Oct. 1844, [1].)

    Working Man’s Advocate. New York City. 1830–184?.

  6. Letter from Central Committee of the National Reform Association, 20 Apr. 1844.

  7. JS, Journal, 17 May 1844; “Minutes of a Convention Held in the City of Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, May 17th, 1844,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 22 May 1844, [2].

    Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.

  8. One of the speakers at this meeting did make some remarks on the 27 June murders of JS and his brother Hyrum Smith, and those present unanimously passed a resolution condemning the killings. (“National Reform Association,” Working Man’s Advocate [New York City], 20 July 1844, [3].)

    Working Man’s Advocate. New York City. 1830–184?.

  9. “Answers of Presidential Candidates,” Working Man’s Advocate (New York City), 3 Aug. 1844, [1].

    Working Man’s Advocate. New York City. 1830–184?.

  10. There are differences in punctuation, italicization, and capitalization between this version and the version published in the Working Man’s Advocate. The Working Man’s Advocate version also adds the word “the” before “mechanics and farmers.” It is possible that the Nauvoo Neighbor version was based on a retained copy or draft of the letter while the Working Man’s Advocate version was based on the sent letter, which might account for these differences. It is also possible that the editor of the Working Man’s Advocate made these alterations to the letter’s text. (See “Answers of Presidential Candidates,” Working Man’s Advocate [New York City], 3 Aug. 1844, [1].)

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation.
*Letter to Central Committee of the National Reform Association, 16 May 1844
Letter to Central Committee of the National Reform Association, 16 May 1844, as Published in Working Man’s Advocate History, 1838–1856, volume F-1 [1 May 1844–8 August 1844] “History of Joseph Smith”

Page [2]

Ill. May 16th, 1844.
To , , , . , , and , Esqrs.
Gentlemen.— Your communication of April 20th, soliciting my views relative to the public lands is before me; and I answer, that, as soon as the greater national evils could be remedied by the consolidated efforts of a virtuous people, and the judicious legislation of wise men, so that slavery could not occupy one half of the , for speculation. competition, prodigality, and fleshly capital, and so that enormous salaries, stipends fees, perquisites. patronage and the wages of spiritual wickedness in “ermine and lace,” could not swallow up forty or fifty millions of public revenue, I would use all honorable means to bring the wages of mechanics and farmers up, and the salaries of public servants down; increase labor and money by a judicious tariff, and advise the people, who are the only sovereigns of the soil, to petition Congress to pass a uniform land law! that the air, the water, and the land of the “Asylum of the oppressed,” might be free, to freemen!
With considerations of the highest regard for unadulterated freedom
I have the honor to be your obt. servt.
JOSEPH SMITH. [p. [2]]
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Letter to Central Committee of the National Reform Association, 16 May 1844
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Footnotes

  1. Witter, a cordwainer (shoemaker), was elected a member of the interim Central Committee of the National Reform Association on 28 March 1844. (“Third General Working Men’s Meeting—Adoption of the Constitution,” Working Man’s Advocate [New York City], 30 Mar. 1844, [3].)

    Working Man’s Advocate. New York City. 1830–184?.

  2. Letter from Central Committee of the National Reform Association, 20 Apr. 1844.

  3. In General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, JS outlined a plan for ending slavery in the United States through compensated emancipation. He requested that the “inhabitants of the slave states” petition their “legislators to abolish slavery by the year 1850,” asking them “to pay every man a reasonable price for his slaves out of the surplus revenue arising from the sale of public lands, and from the deduction of pay from the members of Congress.” The 18 May issue of the Working Man’s Advocate reprinted an article taken from the Boston Investigator that summarized the contents of General Smith’s Views. An editorial comment following the article in the Working Man’s Advocate stated that “Gen. Smith’s plan of taking surplus revenue to purchase the freedom of the slaves would never do. Before the Working Men of the North can pay taxes to free the Southern slaves, they must emancipate themselves from the dominion of land-Lords.” (General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, ca. 26 Jan.–7 Feb. 1844; “General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the United States,” Working Man’s Advocate [New York City], 18 May 1844, [3], italics in original.)

    Working Man’s Advocate. New York City. 1830–184?.

  4. An 1818 congressional act changed the pay for congressmen to eight dollars per day plus forty cents for each mile traveled. In General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, JS proposed that Congress be reduced by “at least one half” and that the “offices of government [be curtailed] in pay, number and power.” In particular, he suggested that congressmen be paid “two dollars and their board per diem; (except Sundays,),” which JS noted was “more than the farmer gets, and he lives honestly.” (Chace, “Inadequate Congressional Salaries,” 504; General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, ca. 26 Jan.–7 Feb. 1844.)

    Chace, Jonathan. “Inadequate Congressional Salaries.” North American Review 148, no. 389 (Apr. 1889): 503–508.

  5. Tariffs were a divisive issue in American politics during the 1820s and 1830s. Whigs generally supported tariffs, while Democrats were divided on the issue. (Holt, Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, 234–236.)

    Holt, Michael F. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

  6. The term asylum of the oppressed comes from Joseph Warren’s 1772 Boston Massacre oration. (Warren, Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772, 18.)

    Warren, Joseph. An Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772. At the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston; To Commemorate the Bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March, 1770. Boston: Edes and Gill, 1772.