Letter to Editors, 6 May 1841
-
Source Note
JS, Letter, , Hancock Co., IL, to the editors of Times and Seasons [ and ], , Hancock Co., IL, 6 May 1841. Featured version published in Times and Seasons, 15 May 1841, vol. 2, no. 14, 414. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter to Isaac Galland, 22 Mar. 1839.
-
Historical Introduction
On 6 May 1841, JS wrote to and , the editors of the Times and Seasons, requesting that they print his account of the recent visit of two prominent politicians: , a Democrat, and , a Whig, both of whom visited , Illinois, on Sunday, 2 May 1841. Douglas had served as Illinois secretary of state in 1840 and assisted in securing the passage of the Nauvoo city charter later that same year. In February 1841, Douglas was elected to the Illinois supreme court and resigned his office as secretary of state. The youngest state supreme court justice in Illinois history, Douglas took his oath of office on 1 March 1841, just shy of his twenty-eighth birthday. Though Douglas was new to his position, an article in the Times and Seasons noted that “all parties bear testimony, that he is eminently qualified for the station he occupies.” Douglas spent much of his time as a state supreme court justice in west-central Illinois; his duties included presiding over the Circuit Court. In early May, Douglas traveled to the Nauvoo area to chair a session of the circuit court. , a prominent lawyer from , Illinois, likely participated in court proceedings in Hancock County during the early May session and decided to visit Nauvoo with Douglas.JS’s 6 May 1841 letter was written specifically for a public audience, and it is the only known contemporaneous account of and ’s visit to . According to JS's letter, Douglas and Walker met with a congregation of Latter-day Saints, where both spoke favorably about the Saints, their industriousness, and the development of the city of Nauvoo. JS juxtaposed Douglas’s and Walker’s attitudes toward the Latter-day Saints with the Saints’ experiences with government officials and prominent citizens in , stating that he hoped “every person” would “imitate the honorable example” of Douglas and Walker.The original letter is apparently not extant. It was published in the 15 May 1841 issue of the Times and Seasons, and that is the version featured here.
Footnotes
-
1
See Historical Introduction to Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840.
-
2
Stephen A. Douglas, Springfield, IL, to Thomas Carlin, 16 Feb. 1841, and Oath of Office, 1 Mar. 1841, in Johannsen, Letters of Stephen A. Douglas, 97.
Johannsen, Robert W., ed. The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961.
-
3
News Item, Times and Seasons, 15 May 1841, 2:417.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
-
4
News Item, Times and Seasons, 15 May 1841, 2:417. At some point during his visit, Douglas inspected the Nauvoo Legion and affirmed its legal status at the request of John C. Bennett. Despite criticism from outside the church that the legion was “exclusively a Mormon military association,” Douglas opined that the legion’s organization was in harmony with government regulations. JS’s 4 May 1841 general orders to the legion characterized Douglas’s assessment as proof that the legion was legitimate—that it was “a body of citizen-soldiers organized (without regard to political preferences or religious sentiments) for the public defence, the general good, and the preservation of law and order.” (General Orders for Nauvoo Legion, 4 May 1841.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
-
5
Douglas’s sympathy for the Saints was evident when he later presided over JS’s June 1841 habeas corpus hearing in Monmouth, Illinois. At that trial it was noted that a description of the suffering and persecutions of the Saints in Missouri “drew tears from the eyes” of Douglas. (“The Late Proceedings,” Times and Seasons, 15 June 1841, 2:447; News Item, Warsaw [IL] Signal, 16 June 1841, [2].)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Warsaw Signal. Warsaw, IL. 1841–1853.
-
6
Another version, copied directly from the Times and Seasons, was published in the 2 June 1841 issue of the Warsaw Signal. (JS, Nauvoo, IL, to the Editors of the Times and Seasons, 6 May 1841, in Warsaw [IL] Signal, 2 June 1841, [2].)
Warsaw Signal. Warsaw, IL. 1841–1853.
-
1
Cite this page
