Letter to Hyrum Smith and Nauvoo High Council, 5 December 1839
Source Note
JS and , Letter, , to and Nauvoo high council, [, Hancock Co., IL], 5 Dec. 1839. Featured version copied [between Apr. and June 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 85–88; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.
Historical Introduction
On 5 December 1839, JS and wrote to —the remaining member of the in , Illinois—and the to inform them of their safe arrival in a week earlier. JS and Higbee apprised Smith and the high council of their recent efforts to obtain redress from the federal government for the persecutions members experienced in and described their meeting with President , in which the president declined to help the Saints.
JS and , accompanied by representative , went to the President’s House on 29 November seeking a meeting with . In the 1830s, visitors commonly arrived at the President’s House without an appointment. Many Americans, including legislators and office seekers, discussed their business with the president in social settings, and Van Buren frequently met with guests in the parlor outside his office for hours at a time. In this setting, JS and Higbee would have had to compete with other visitors for the president’s attention, which may explain why Reynolds introduced them.
It is unclear what JS and asked to do to support their petitioning efforts. They may have requested an executive order that would result in redress and reparations for church members’ losses, but no documentary evidence exists to support this possibility. It is unlikely that Van Buren would have considered executive action to force , a state led predominantly by Democrats, to restore the Saints’ property rights. Van Buren was a staunch advocate of states’ rights and was at this time widely considered the architect of the Democratic Party, which had elected his predecessor, Andrew Jackson, to two consecutive presidential terms. However, JS and Higbee possibly believed Van Buren was amenable to lending his political influence to the church’s memorial for redress to Congress. Evidence suggests they tried to enlist him to assist in their appeal. In their ongoing correspondence while in , members of the church’s delegation indicated they were awaiting publication of the president’s annual message to Congress, hoping that Van Buren would therein urge Congress to act in the Saints’ behalf.
JS and also described their plan to meet with all the congressional delegates the following day, mentioned the delayed travel of and , and asked and the high council to help expedite financial arrangements for the delegation. They then requested that the Saints continue their efforts to encourage influential men in Illinois and to write letters to Congress in support of the church. After closing by asking that the letter be forwarded to their wives, JS and Higbee included a postscript that criticized the behavior of Congress and recounted more of their travels.
received the letter by 2 January 1840. The original letter is not extant. The version featured here was copied into JS Letterbook 2 by between April and June 1840.
An account of an April 1840 JS discourse states that JS met with Van Buren at the President’s House over two successive days, whereas according to this letter to Hyrum Smith—the earliest extant account of the meeting—and a March 1840 discourse, the parties met at the President’s House only once. All three of these accounts, however, reported the same sentiment in Van Buren’s response. (Discourse, 7 Apr. 1840; Discourse, 1 Mar. 1840.)
Allgor, Catherine. Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000.
Presidents rarely issued executive orders during this period. Van Buren’s seven predecessors in office had issued a combined total of thirty executive orders over forty-three years. Van Buren issued ten executive orders during his term as president. (Peters and Woolley, “Executive Orders,” in American Presidency Project.)
Peters, Gerhard, and John T. Woolley. “Executive Orders.” In The American Presidency Project, 1999–. Hosted by the University of California, Santa Barbara. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php.
A report of JS’s discourse at an April 1840 general conference of the church states that JS and Higbee were seeking Van Buren’s assistance with their plan to petition Congress and makes no mention of a possible executive order. (Discourse, 7 Apr. 1840.)
The Congressional Globe, Containing Sketches of the Debates and Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Congress. Vol. 8. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1840.
This campaign to have influential men write to Congress was apparently an extension of the petitioning plan Rigdon set forth in April 1839. (Letter from Sidney Rigdon, 10 Apr. 1839.)
much as we had anticipated if not more— We have had a pleasing interview with , who proposed to furnish us with expense money—
We can draw on him for funds to publish our book and we want you to raise some more money for us and deposit it in the branch Bank on in to be drawn to the order of .
Send us the amount of theorder your deposit, taking a receipt of the same— You need not be afraid to do this, as <We> think from the proceeds of the sales of books— We can make it all strait: do therefore be punctual, and attend to this matter; as much depends upon it. We cannot accomplish the things for which we were sent without some funds— You very well know brethren we were contented to start, trusting in God with little or nothing— We have met with but one accident since we started— The lock of our trunk was broken off and Bro. s. petition is missing, but we presume there is a copy of it preserved; if there is you will please forward it immediately, with the name and affidavit affixed to it. For Gods. sake Bretheren be wide awake, and arm us with all the power possible, for now is the time or never— We want you should get all the influential men you can of that section of country of and every other quarter to write letters to the members of Congress, using their influence in our behalf, and to keep their minds constantly upon the subject. Please to forward this to our wives
Yours
in the bonds of the ,
Joseph Smith Jr.
P.S.
Congress has been in session four days and the house of Representatives is not yet organized on account of some seats being contested, in the Delegation. They have this day succeeded [p. 87]
Wight wrote his petition pursuant to JS’s request that the Saints gather “a knowledge of all the facts and suffering and abuses put upon them by the people of this state [Missouri].” There are two petitions authored by Wight to which this letter may be referring, though there are only minor textual differences between the two documents. (Letter to Edward Partridge and the Church, ca. 22 Mar. 1839 [D&C 123:1]; Lyman Wight, Petition, ca. 1839, microfilm, Martin Van Buren, Correspondence, 1839–1844, CHL; Lyman Wight, Petition, ca. 1839, CHL.)
Van Buren, Martin. Correspondence, 1839–1844. Photocopies. CHL. MS 12809. Original at Library of Congress, Washington DC.
Wight, Lyman. Petition, Liberty, MO, 15 Mar. 1839. CHL. MS 24547.
As the Twenty-Sixth Congress commenced, two separate delegations from New Jersey—one Whig, one Democrat—arrived at the United States Capitol, each claiming to be that state’s duly elected delegation to the House of Representatives. Of the six seats New Jersey held in the House, five were contested due to actions of local elections officials. Because of the strong partisan divide within the House of Representatives (which contained 119 Democrats and 118 Whigs, not including the contested New Jersey seats), the question of which New Jersey delegates to seat elicited a heated and prolonged debate that prevented the House from formally organizing and conducting legislative business for fourteen days. The House ultimately decided to seat the Democratic representatives. (Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., 2–16 Dec. 1839, 3–80; 10 Mar. 1840, 569–578; Alexander Johnston, “Broad Seal War,” in Lalor, Cyclopaedia of Political Science, 309.)
Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Being the First Session of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, Begun and Held at the City of Washington, December 2, 1839, and in the Sixty-Fourth Year of the Independence of the Said United States. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1839.
Lalor, John J. Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, by the Best American and European Writers. Vol. 1, Abdication–Duty. Chicago: Melbert B. Carey, 1883.