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Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, circa 24–26 March 1844
Source Note
Source Note
JS, Memorial, , Hancock Co., IL, to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, [], ca. 24–26 Mar. 1844; handwriting of with insertions by ; signature of JS; three pages; Records of the U.S. Senate, Record Group 46, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC. Includes docket. Transcription from photocopy.
Two leaves, the measurements of which are unknown. The text was inscribed on three pages. The photocopy shows that the memorial was trifolded in letter style.
On 6 May 1844, when senator presented the memorial, the Senate referred it to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The memorial probably remained in Senate committee records for the next several decades. The records of the Committee on Foreign Relations were transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration sometime after the administration was created in 1934.
Footnotes
- [1]
Congressional Globe, 28th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 575 (1844).
The Congressional Globe, Containing Sketches of the Debates and Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Congress. Vol. 8. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1840.
- [2]
National Archives, “National Archives History.”
National Archives. “National Archives History.” National Archives, Washington DC. Accessed 13 Mar. 2020. https://www.archives.gov/about/history.
Historical Introduction
Historical Introduction
On 26 March 1844, the in , Illinois, approved a memorial that petitioned Congress to make JS a member of the Army with authority to command a large volunteer force that would protect Americans migrating to the western regions of North America. JS had presided over the organizational meeting of the Council of Fifty earlier that month in connection with plans for westward emigration. On 11 March, he held the initial council meetings after receiving two letters from leaders in the church’s lumber camps suggesting that the Latter-day Saints send a scouting expedition to the or a western territory to explore the possibility of a future settlement for the Saints. Though interested in the suggestion, JS and other leaders in Nauvoo believed that international political considerations, competing land claims, and weak legal institutions on the western borderlands of the United States could leave Latter-day Saints and other settlers in a precarious position and in need of protection.
At this time, questions and uncertainty surrounding territorial expansion figured prominently in American politics. Many Americans were concerned that if the did not annex and , the regions would become allied with or subsumed into the British Empire and would thereby leave the United States surrounded by British Oregon on its western border and by British Texas on its southern border. JS apparently shared these concerns. A few weeks earlier he reportedly said, “The president of Texas sayes if you do not receive us in the united States we will go to the British this would certainly be bad policy for this Nation the British are now through out that whole country trying to bribe all they can. How much better it is to be to a little expens than to have the indians & British upon us & destroy us all.”
On 19 March, proposed a resolution directing the to submit a petition to Congress “specifying that General Joseph Smith will protect the and from all foreign invasion if the General Government will authorise him to raise volunteers.” The council discussed this resolution at its next meeting on 21 March. JS supported the idea of sending a memorial to Congress, saying that it was necessary and appropriate to petition the federal government. JS’s brother motioned that a committee be formed to draft the memorial. The council then assigned Richards, Hyrum Smith, and as members and appointed to take the memorial to . JS instructed Hyde to lobby Congress to approve the memorial in its entirety without changes. The council also voted to send a copy of the memorial to senator and another to Illinois representative .
worked on the petition on 24 March and brought it to JS for review the next day. During a council meeting held on the morning of 26 March, Richards read the memorial to the group. When the council reconvened in the afternoon, the memorial was read a second time, and much of the recorded discussion that followed centered on the opening language of each section. JS and others, including , a practicing attorney, supported the petition’s use of “ordained,” while others thought the language should be changed to “enacted.” After further discussion, JS motioned that the council send a copy of the memorial to President .
JS signed copies of the memorial intended for the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the president on 31 March 1844. In contrast to other memorials that the Latter-day Saints had submitted to Congress, JS was the only petitioner. departed for with the memorials shortly thereafter. Before delivering copies of the petition to the representatives, Hyde made some critical redactions to the memorial, including striking out the section calling for JS to be made a member of the Army. He also changed the wording of portions of the petition, asking that Congress pass a “bill” rather than an “ordinance” and “enact” rather than “ordain” each section of this “bill.” Representative tried to submit the memorial during a meeting of the House on 25 May but was ultimately unsuccessful. The version of the memorial featured here was delivered to Senator , who presented it to the Senate on 6 May 1844. The memorial was then referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and no further action was taken.
Footnotes
- [1]
- [2]
Crapol, John Tyler, 181–182; Discourse, 7 Mar. 1844–B, as Reported by Wilford Woodruff.
Crapol, Edward P. John Tyler: The Accidental President. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
- [3]
- [4]
- [5]
Council of Fifty, “Record,” 21 Mar. 1844. During the meeting on 21 March, Uriah Brown—one of the three council members who did not belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—moved that the memorial “be put into the hands of Mr Semple for consideration in the U.S. Senate at the same time that Mr [John] Wentworth agitates the subject in the house.” The council unanimously passed Brown’s motion.
- [6]
Richards, Journal, 24 Mar. 1844; JS, Journal, 25 Mar. 1844.
Richards, Willard. Journals, 1836–1853. Willard Richards, Papers, 1821–1854. CHL. MS 1490, boxes 1–2.
- [7]
- [8]
Council of Fifty, “Record,” 26 Mar. 1844. The memorial written to Tyler was nearly identical; the only notable difference was that it was addressed to Tyler personally and that the actionable part of the memorial was written as a presidential mandate rather than a bill. JS’s journal states that the memorial for Tyler had “the same purpose” as the one for Congress but was sent in case “the other fail.” (JS, Memorial to John Tyler, 30 Mar. 1844, copy, JS Collection, CHL; JS, Journal, 31 Mar. 1844.)
- [9]
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The Council of Fifty reprimanded Hyde for striking that section of the memorial. (See Letter to Orson Hyde and Orson Pratt, 13 May 1844.)
- [13]
Congressional Globe, 28th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 624 (1844); John Wentworth, Washington DC, to JS, [Nauvoo, IL], 25 May 1844, JS Collection, CHL. John Quincy Adams, former president and a current United States representative from Massachusetts, noted this failed attempt by Wentworth. (See Adams, Diary, 25 May 1844.)
The Congressional Globe, Containing Sketches of the Debates and Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Congress. Vol. 8. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1840.
- [14]
Congressional Globe, 28th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 575 (1844).
The Congressional Globe, Containing Sketches of the Debates and Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Congress. Vol. 8. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1840.
Sec. 1. Be it ordained <enacted> by the Senate and House of Representatives of the of America in Congress assembled, that Joseph Smith of the City of , in the State of , is hereby authorized and empowered to raise a Company of one hundred thousand armed volunteers, in the and Territories at such times and places, and in such numbers, as he shall find necessary and convenient for the purposes specified in the foregoing preamble; and to execute the same.
Sec. 2. And be it further ordained <enacted> that if any person or persons shall hinder or attempt to hinder or molest the said Joseph Smith, from executing his designs in raising said volunteers, and marching or transporting the same to the borders of the and territories, he or they so hindering, molesting, or offending, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars each, for every offence; or by hard labor on some public work not exceeding two years, or both, at the discretion of the nearest District Court of the where the hindrance or offence shall be committed. <having jurisdiction.>
Sec. 3. And be it further ordained the more fully to remove all obstructions and hindrances to the raising, enlisting, and marching the volunteers as aforesaid, the said Joseph Smith is hereby constituted a Member of the Army of the and is authorized to act as such in the and Territories, and on all lands bordering upon the and Territories for the purposes specified in the foregoing preamble, provided said land shall not be within the acknowledged jurisdiction of any acknowledged National Government
Sec 4. <3.> And be it further ordained <enacted> that nothing in this Ordinance <act> shall be so construed by any individual or nation, as to consider the Volunteers aforesaid, as constituting any part of the Army of the ; neither shall the said Joseph Smith, as a Member of the United States Army disturb the peace of any nation or government, acknowledged as such: break the faith of treaties between the and any other Nation or violate any known law of nations, thereby endangering the peace of the
Sec. 5. And be it further ordained <enacted>, that the said Joseph Smith shall confine his operations to those principles of action specified in the Preamble to this Ordinance <act>, the perpetuity of which shall be commensurate with the circumstances and specifications which have originated it.
And your Memorialist, will ever pray &c
Joseph Smith
City of , Illinois)
March 26th. 1844) [p. [3]]
Source Note
Source Note
Document Transcript
Document Information
Document Information
Footnotes
Footnotes
- [16]
The size of the standing United States Army had been quite small in comparison to JS’s call for one hundred thousand armed volunteers. Eight thousand men composed the army in 1837. President Martin Van Buren’s administration increased the size of the army, but it was not until the Mexican-American War that the total number of regulars and volunteers grew to eighty-six thousand. In addition, Americans were averse to standing armies in the early republic because they represented a central authority and a possible threat to republican ideology. (Watson, Peacekeepers and Conquerors, 186; Greenberg, Wicked War, 130; Bennett, “Creating a Professional Military in the Early American Republic,” 42.)
Watson, Samuel J. Peacekeepers and Conquerors: The Army Officer Corps on the American Frontier, 1821–1846. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013.
Greenberg, Amy S. A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico. New York: Knopf, 2012.
Bennett, Sally E. “Seeking ‘Men of Iron Sinew’: Creating a Professional Military in the Early American Republic.” In Early Republic: People and Perspectives, edited by Andrew K. Frank, 41–57. Perspectives in American Social History, edited by Peter C. Mancall. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009.
- [17]
Constitutionally, the legislative branch alone did not have the power to honor such a request. The president nominated army officers, who were then confirmed by the Senate. During the antebellum era, most officers were graduates of West Point, the United States Military Academy, though civilians were also nominated during times of the expansion of the army. However, the appointment of civilians to the officer corps had been suspended during John Tyler’s presidency and did not resume until James K. Polk was president. (Skelton, American Profession of Arms, 137–138, 142–145.)
Skelton, William B. An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps, 1784–1861. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992.
- [18]
The Neutrality Act of 1794 as amended prohibited any American from planning, outfitting, or leading “any military expedition or enterprise, to be carried on from thence against the territory or dominions of any foreign prince or state, or of any colony, district, or people, with whom the United States are [at] peace.” (An Act in Addition to the “Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States,” and to Repeal the Acts Therein Mentioned [20 Apr. 1818], Public Statutes at Large, 15th Cong., 1st Sess., chap. 88, p. 449, sec. 6, brackets in original.)
The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to March 3, 1845. . . . Edited by Richard Peters. 8 vols. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846–1867.
Signature of JS.