Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, circa 16 December 1843–12 February 1844, Draft
Source Note
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , JS, , and , Draft of Memorial, , Hancock Co., IL, to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, , 21 Dec. 1843; handwriting of , , and ; docket in handwriting of ; twenty-four pages; JS Office Papers, CHL.
alternative but to bow down our necks and wear the cruel yoke of oppression and quietly and submissively suffer ourselves to be banished as exiles from our possessions our property and our <sacred> homes or else <otherwise> see our wives and children coldly murdered and butchered by tyrants in power.
<Fourth,> Our next permanent Settlement in the spring of 1839 was in the land of our exile the state of <in the spring of 1839> but even here we are not secure from our relentless persecutor the state of Not satisfied in having drenched her soil in the blood of innocence and expelling us from her borders She pursues her unfortunate victims into banishment seizing upon and kidnaping them in their defenseless moments dragging them across the upon their inhospitable shores where they are tortured whipped immersed in dungeons and finally hung by the neck <by the neck> without any legal process whatever We have memorialized the <former> executive of this <> upon there lawless outrages committed upon our citizens but he has rendered us no protection receiving no check in her murderous [illegible] <career> continues her depradations. Again and again kidnapping our citizens & robbing us of our property While others who fortunately survived the of her bloody edicts are again and again demmanded by the of that on pretence of some crime said to have been committed by them during the exterminating expedition against ourpeople<us> <our people> As an instance, Gen. Joseph Smith one of your memorialists has been three times demanded and three times has had to apply for writs of and three times has been <tried, &> acquited by the Courts of this upon investigation under said writs <writs of Habeas Corpus> once by the United States Court for the district of again by the circuit Court of the State of and lastly by the Municipal Court of the city of when at the same time a has been entered by the Courts of <*>upon all the cases of that against Joseph Smith and others <&> Thus we have been continually harassed and robbed of our money to defray the expenses of those vexatious prosections.<Thus the said Joseph Smith has been <several times> put in jeopardy of both life & limb contrary to the for the same alleged offence contrary to to the 5th Art. of the amendments to the Constitution of these > <*Upon all the cases of that against Joseph Smith and others. Thus the said Joseph Smith has been several times <tried> for the same alleged offence put in jeopardy of life & limb contrary to the fifth Article of the amendments to the Constitution of these and thus we have been continually harassed and robbed of our money to defray the expenses of those vexatious prosecutions> And what at the present time is <seems to be> still more alarming is the hostility manifested by some of the authorities and citizens of this Conventions have been called Inflamatory speeches made and many unlawful and unconstitutional res [p. 6]
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