On 21 December 1843, the , Illinois, city council met to conduct a variety of business, which included determining the potential location of the city jail, petitioning Congress for territorial status, and passing an ordinance to control legal process within the city. These measures grew out of the ’s ongoing efforts to respond to the kidnapping of residents and in November and December 1843 and the desire to protect other Nauvoo citizens from such actions.

The council met from noon to three o’clock in the afternoon. JS, the mayor, apparently arrived late, but he actively participated in most of the meeting’s business. During the discussions, JS even “suggested the propriety of making all coloured people free.” JS’s rhetoric and the city council’s actions indicate that ’s government was prepared to utilize radical measures—such as suspending legal process or emancipating slaves in the city—in order to defend its residents from what it viewed as unjust persecution from Missourians and opponents of the church.

City recorder took the minutes of the 21 December 1843 city council meeting in a notebook of rough minutes during or shortly after the meeting. The rough minutes are featured here.