Letter to Seymour Brunson and Nauvoo High Council, 7 December 1839
Source Note
JS and , Letter, , to and Nauvoo high council, [, Hancock Co., IL], 7 Dec. 1839. Featured version copied [between Apr. and June 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 89–91; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.
Historical Introduction
On 7 December 1839, JS and wrote a letter to and the rest of the to report on the delegation’s efforts to obtain redress from the federal government. On 5 December, JS and Higbee had written to report on their meeting with President and their plans to meet with the congressional delegation from . In this 7 December letter, JS and Higbee described their efforts to lobby Congress and gave details of two meetings with the Illinois delegation. At these meetings, JS and Higbee presented their grievances against and enlisted the assistance of the Illinois representatives and senators to present to Congress a petition they had started to draft before departing for . Representative John Todd Stuart (a Whig from , Illinois) agreed to help prepare the memorial, and Senator (a Democrat from Jonesboro, Illinois) agreed to introduce it in the Senate.
It is not entirely clear why JS and singled out in the letter’s salutation. They possibly thought Brunson was the most reliable addressee when corresponding by mail. later similarly opted to address all correspondence with the church’s delegation in to Higbee because Smith thought it would “come more safe to his address” while JS was traveling between the capital and .
The original letter is not extant. The version featured here is a copy entered into JS Letterbook 2 by sometime between April and June 1840. made an additional copy of this letter for a third party at about the same time. It is unclear whether Thompson’s copy or Coray’s copy was made first. However, Coray’s copy is featured here because its provenance is more certain. Only one slight substantive difference, noted in the annotation herein, exists between the two copies.
Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives / Petitions and Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures, and Related Documents Which Were Referred to the Committee on Judiciary during the 27th Congress. Committee on the Judiciary, Petitions and Memorials, 1813–1968. Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789–2015. National Archives, Washington DC. The LDS records cited herein are housed in National Archives boxes 40 and 41 of Library of Congress boxes 139–144 in HR27A-G10.1.
the prominent members of the Senate, who were also Lawyers, and would report to us at the next meeting.
We met this day according to appointment & very friendly feelings were manifested, on the occasion.
Our business were taken up, and stated that he had asked the opinion of Judge [Hugh L.] White Tennssee. of Mr. Wright, and several other members; whose names we do not recollect, but were prominent members of the Senate— They all declined going giving an opinion at present, as it was a matter that they had not considered sufficiently to decide upon at this time, The meeting then after some deliberation decided in our favor, which decision was that a memorial and petition be drawn up in a concise manner, (our Representatives promising so to do,) and present them to the Senate, that they might thereby refer it to the proper committee, with all the accompaning documents, and order the same to be printed,— We want you to assist us now by your prayers; and also to forward us your certificates, that you hold for lands in ; your <claims to> preemption claims rig[h]ts, and affidavits to prove that soldiers were quartered on us and in our houses without our consent, or any special act of law for the purpose: contrary to the constitution of the . We think , & others, will recollect the circumstances and facts relative to this matter— You will also recollect the circumstance of Bro, Joseph & others being refused the priviledge of by the authorities of ,
These facts must be authenticated by affidavits— Let any particular transaction of the outrages in that can be sworn to by the sufferers, or those who were eye witnesses to the facts, be sent; specifying the particulars: Have the evidence bonafide to the point, The house of Representatives, is not yet organized: much feeling and confusion have prevailed in the House for a few days past: the house succeeded in electing chairman protem on 5th inst. They have not yet elected their speaker or clerk— The Senate [p. 90]
White served as a United States senator from Tennessee from 1825 to 1840. He had previously served on the Tennessee Supreme Court, and he ran for president in 1836 as a Whig, finishing third behind Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison. (McBride and Robison, Biographical Directory of the Tennessee General Assembly, 776–778.)
McBride, Robert M., and Dan M. Robison. Biographical Directory of the Tennessee General Assembly. 6 vols. Nashville, TN: Tennessee State Library and Archives and the Tennessee Historical Commission, 1975.
Likely Silas Wright Jr. (Democrat), a lawyer and senator from New York. (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 120, 2204.)
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–2005, the Continental Congress, September 5, 1774, to October 21, 1788, and the Congress of the United States, from the First through the One Hundred Eighth Congresses, March 4, 1789, to January 3, 2005, inclusive. Edited by Andrew R. Dodge and Betty K. Koed. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005.
In Thompson’s copy of the letter, this parenthetical statement reads: “which our representative Mr Steward promised to do.” “Mr. Steward” is a reference to Representative John Todd Stuart of Illinois. (JS and Elias Higbee, Washington DC, to Seymour Brunson, 7 Dec. 1839, copy, JS Collection, CHL; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1995.)
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–2005, the Continental Congress, September 5, 1774, to October 21, 1788, and the Congress of the United States, from the First through the One Hundred Eighth Congresses, March 4, 1789, to January 3, 2005, inclusive. Edited by Andrew R. Dodge and Betty K. Koed. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005.
Preemption rights were a contractual agreement to purchase a tract of public land before it became available for purchase by a person or an entity. The holder of the preemption rights to a piece of property effectively had the first option to buy the property. Because the conflict in Missouri occurred right before the land became available for sale, church members claimed that their attackers sought to take away the Saints’ preemption rights for their own economic advantage. (Affidavit, 20 Jan. 1840; Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840; see also Walker, “Mormon Land Rights,” 4–55.)
As a member of the committee formed in January 1839 to assist poor church members leaving Missouri, Ripley would have been familiar with the specific details surrounding the expulsion of individual church members and the fate of the property they left behind. (“Proceedings of Meeting No 2 Jany 29th 1839,” Far West Committee, Minutes, CHL; see also Dimick B. Huntington, Reminiscences and Journal, 8.)
Far West Committee. Minutes, Jan.–Apr. 1839. CHL. MS 2564.
Huntington, Dimick B. Reminiscences and Journal, 1845–1847. Dimick B. Huntington, Journal, 1845–1859. CHL. MS 1419, fd. 1.
Article 1, section 9, of the United States Constitution states: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” JS and five others were incarcerated at Liberty, Missouri, from 1 December 1838 to 6 April 1839. They appealed to both a county court and the Missouri Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, but both courts denied their appeals. (Jessee, “‘Walls, Grates, and Screeking Iron Doors’: The Prison Experience of Mormon Leaders in Missouri,” 19–42; Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839.)
Jessee, Dean C. “‘Walls, Grates and Screeking Iron Doors’: The Prison Experiences of Mormon Leaders in Missouri, 1838–1839.” In New Views of Mormon History: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Leonard J. Arrington, edited by Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, 19–42. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987.
In preparation for the church’s appeal to the federal government, Higbee certified dozens of affidavits in his official capacity as a justice of the peace. This may have been the same type of legal care JS and Higbee were urging the high council to take as they continued to build a case against Missouri. Dozens of affidavits regarding lost and damaged property in Missouri were submitted to Congress by JS, Rigdon, and Higbee and by later church delegations sent to the federal government. It is unclear, however, which of these were submitted by the 1839–1840 delegation and which ones were submitted later.