On 27 June 1840, , acting on behalf of JS, informed the that JS had vetoed actions the council took in its 20 June 1840 meeting, which JS apparently did not attend. At that meeting, the high council considered a memorial from JS requesting that he be relieved from his duties relating to temporal affairs in Nauvoo, Illinois, especially those involving land sales. Pursuant to JS’s request, the high council appointed as a clerk for the sale of Nauvoo town lots and also directed Ripley to ensure that the temporal needs of JS and his counselors in the were met. Although the high council’s actions seem to meet the requests in JS’s memorial, JS objected to these decisions. Minutes of a subsequent meeting suggest JS may have believed that the high council members had not sufficiently considered the heavy financial responsibility he bore from purchasing land in the Nauvoo area on behalf of the or that they had not addressed pressing questions, such as how much Sherwood should be compensated for his service. JS also may have wanted the high council to specify where funding would come from to support him, his family, and the other members of the First Presidency. Whatever the case, Ripley relayed JS’s veto, and the high council decided to rehear JS’s memorial on 3 July 1840.

, serving as clerk pro tempore of the high council, took the minutes of the meeting. Stout recorded the minutes into the high council record book sometime after 14 February 1842 and likely before the end of that year.