Footnotes

1. [1]

   Revelation, 27 Feb. 1833 [D&C 89]. Though the February 1833 revelation stated that it was given as a “principle with promise” rather than by “commandment or constraint,” some church members in Missouri and Kirtland were disfellowshipped or excommunicated for “too free a use of strong drink.” (Minutes, 20 Feb. 1834; Murdock, Journal, 4 Mar. 1834; Minute Book 1, 6–7 June 1835 and 16 May 1836; Minutes, Messenger and Advocate, Apr. 1835, 1:101–102; Minute Book 2, ca. May 1837 and 13 Apr. 1838.)

   Murdock, John. Journal, ca. 1830–1859. John Murdock, Journal and Autobiography, ca. 1830–1867. CHL. MS 1194, fd. 2.

   Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate. Kirtland, OH. Oct. 1834–Sept. 1837.

2. [2]

   Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 15 Feb. 1841, 8; see also Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 15 Feb. 1841, 5.

3. [3]

   Nauvoo Mayor’s Court Docket Book, 27, 29, 30, 34, 38; JS, Journal, 21–23 Aug. 1843.

   Nauvoo Mayor’s Court Docket Book / Nauvoo, IL, Mayor’s Court. Docket Book, 1843. In Historian’s Office, Historical Record Book, 1843–1874, pp. 12–50. CHL.

4. [4]

   Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 23 Oct. 1841, 26.

5. [5]

   Discourse, 13 Aug. 1843–B.

6. [6]

   According to one account, JS may have been serving liquor in the Nauvoo Mansion before this request. John Finch, a touring British disciple of social reformer Robert Owen, stayed at the Nauvoo Mansion from 11–15 September 1843. In 1844, he recalled his surprise that JS “kept an hotel, [and] sold and drank whiskey punch.” By at least 1 December 1843, the room in the southwest corner of the Nauvoo Mansion was known as the “bar room,” which at the time referred to “the inclosed place of a tavern, inn or coffee-house, where the landlord or his servant delivers out liquors, and waits upon customers.” (John Finch, “Notes of Travel in the United States,” New Moral World: and Gazette of the Rational Society, 5 Oct. 1844, 113; JS, Journal, 13–15 Sept. and 1 Dec. 1843; William Clayton, “Notice to Emigrants and Latter-day Saints Generally,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 20 Dec. 1843, [3]; JS to Ebenezer Robinson, Lease, Hancock Co., IL, 23 Jan. 1844, Newel K. Whitney, Papers, BYU; “Bar,” in American Dictionary [1841], 1:140.)

   New Moral World: and Gazette of the Rational Society. London, 1834–1837; Manchester, England, 1837–1838; Birmingham, England, 1838–1839; Leeds, England, 1839–1841; London, 1841–1845; Harmony, Hampshire Co., England, 1845; London, 1845.

   Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.

   An American Dictionary of the English Language; First Edition in Octavo, Containing the Whole Vocabulary of the Quarto, with Corrections, Improvements and Several Thousand Additional Words. . . . Edited by Noah Webster. 2nd ed. 2 vols. New Haven: By the author, 1841.

7. [7]

   Ordinance, 12 Dec. 1843, draft, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL.

8. [8]

   Nauvoo’s charter authorized the city council to “license, tax, [and] regulate auctioneers, merchants and retailers, grocers, taverns, ordinaries, hawkers, peddlers, brokers, pawn brokers, and money changers.” (Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840.)

9. [9]

   Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 12 Dec. 1843, 25. In a subsequent city council meeting, Harris indicated that he opposed the sale of liquor in the city. (Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 13 Jan. 1844, 43.)

10. [10]

    Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 13 Jan. 1844, 44.

11. [11]

    Mary Audentia Smith Anderson, “The Memoirs of President Joseph Smith,” Saints’ Herald, 22 Jan. 1935, 110–111.

    Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.

12. [12]

    Minutes and Discourse, 29 Dec. 1843; Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 13 Jan. 1844, 43.

13. [13]

    Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 16 Jan. 1844, 201.

14. [14]

    On 8 December 1843, the city council passed an ordinance titled “An Extra Ordinance for the Extra Case of Joseph Smith and Others,” which made it illegal for anyone to attempt to arrest JS in Nauvoo on charges related to the “Missouri difficulties.” At that same session, the city council granted JS exclusive authority to build and maintain a wing dam in the Mississippi River. The Warsaw Message claimed that, when taken together, these ordinances proved “how utterly regardless of all law and right & decency” the Nauvoo City Council had become. The Quincy Whig summarized the new liquor ordinance and, after recounting JS’s leadership positions over the Nauvoo Legion, the city, and his church, criticized JS for “stooping to the low condition of retailing Whiskey at a picayune a dram!” (Ordinance, 8 Dec. 1843; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 8 Dec. 1843, 192–193; Editorial, Warsaw [IL] Message, 17 Jan. 1844, [1]; “Nauvoo City Council—Gen. Joseph Smith—Special Privileges, &c.,” Quincy [IL] Whig, 27 Dec. 1843, [2], italics in original; see also Minutes, 8 Dec. 1843.)

    Warsaw Message. Warsaw, IL. 1843–1844.

    Quincy Whig. Quincy, IL. 1838–1856.

15. [15]

    Editorial, Warsaw (IL) Message, 10 Jan. 1844, [2]; Editorials, Warsaw Message, 17 Jan. 1844, Extra, [1], [4]; “Westward Ho!,” Letter to the Editor, New-York Daily Tribune (New York City), 27 Jan. 1844, [1]. JS later claimed that Charles A. Foster authored the anonymous letter to the editor of the Daily Tribune. (JS, Journal, 7 Mar. 1844.)

    Warsaw Message. Warsaw, IL. 1843–1844.

    New-York Daily Tribune. New York City. 1841–1924.

16. [16]

    “The Mormons,” Cleveland Herald, 24 Jan. 1844, [2]; see also, for example, “The Mormons,” Huron Reflector (Norwalk, OH), 30 Jan. 1844, [2]; and “The Mormons,” Lancaster (PA) Examiner and Democratic Herald, 7 Feb. 1844, [2].

    Cleveland Herald. Cleveland. 1843–1853.

    Huron Reflector. Norwalk, OH. 1830–1852.

    Lancaster Examiner and Democratic Herald. Lancaster, PA. 1839–1844.

17. [17]

    Ordinance, 12 Dec. 1843, copy, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL.