Cancellation and insertion in the handwriting of William W. Phelps.
Insertion in the handwriting of William W. Phelps. This insertion was made at JS’s request during the 10 June 1844 city council meeting. Illinois state law, drawing on Kent’s Commentaries on American Law, defined libel as “a malicious defamation, expressed either by printing or by signs or pictures, or the like, tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation, or publish the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him or her to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule.” Illinois law provided that “in all prosecutions for a libel, the truth thereof may be given in evidence in justification, except libels tending to blacken the memory of the dead, or expose the natural defects of the living.” This defense, however, was not acknowledged in Nauvoo's libel ordinance. Illinois law did not criminalize slander, or defamatory words, although an 1843 legal treatise on slander and libel indicated that if slanderous words had the potential to lead to violence, they could be prosecuted as a breach of the peace. (Minutes, 10 June 1844; An Act Relative to Criminal Jurisprudence [26 Feb. 1833], Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois [1839], p. 220, sec. 120; Starkie and Wendell, Treatise on the Law of Slander and Libel, 2:184–186.)
The Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois: Containing All the Laws . . . Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at Their First Session, Commencing December 1, 1834, and Ending February 13, 1835; and at Their Second Session, Commencing December 7, 1835, and Ending January 18, 1836; and Those Passed by the Tenth General Assembly, at Their Session Commencing December 5, 1836, and Ending March 6, 1837; and at Their Special Session, Commencing July 10, and Ending July 22, 1837. . . . Compiled by Jonathan Young Scammon. Chicago: Stephen F. Gale, 1839.
Starkie, Thomas. A Treatise on the Law of Slander and Libel, and Incidentally of Malicious Prosecutions. Vol. 2. Albany, New York: C. Van Benthuysen, 1843.