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Resolution, 10 June 1844

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Resolution, 10 June 1844

Source Note

Nauvoo City Council, Resolution, [, Hancock Co., IL], 10 June 1844; included endorsement. Featured version copied [ca. 25 June 1844]; handwriting of ; one page; JS Collection, CHL. Includes notation.
Single leaf measuring 9⅝ × 7¾ inches (24 × 20 cm). Both the recto and verso are ruled with twenty-seven horizontal lines printed in ink (now faded). The left side of the recto was irregularly cut, which suggests that the leaf was removed from a book or larger sheet. The top half of the recto contains this featured document; the bottom half of the recto contains a copy of JS’s 10 June 1844 order to city marshal . The document was trifolded for filing. The upper left corner has holes made from staples or pins.
, who served as JS’s scribe from 1843 to 1844 and as clerk to the church historian and recorder from 1845 to 1865, made insertions to the copy of ’s endorsement of the mayor’s order on the back of the document. JS’s order to Greene, which was written on the same leaf as the city council’s resolution, was possibly listed in an inventory that was produced by the Church Historian’s Office (later Church Historical Department) circa 1904. By 1973 the document had been included in the JS Collection at the Church Historical Department (now CHL). Bullock’s early insertions, the document’s possible listing in the circa 1904 inventory, and its later inclusion in the JS Collection suggest continuous institutional custody.

Footnotes

  1. Mayor’s Order to Nauvoo City Marshal, 10 June 1844.

  2. See Jessee, “Writing of Joseph Smith’s History,” 456, 458; and Woodruff, Journal, 22 Jan. 1865.

    Jessee, Dean C. “The Writing of Joseph Smith’s History.” BYU Studies 11 (Summer 1971): 439–473.

    Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.

  3. “Letters to and from the Prophet,” ca. 1904, [4], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL. This inventory lists two undated letters to the city marshal under the year 1844. One of these could be referring to JS’s 10 June 1844 order to Greene. JS, however, wrote to Greene on more than two occasions in 1844.

    Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.

  4. See the full bibliographic entry for JS Collection, 1827–1844, in the CHL catalog.

Historical Introduction

On 10 June 1844, the , Illinois, city council passed a resolution declaring the Nauvoo Expositor a nuisance and ordering JS as mayor to have it removed. The first and only issue of this newspaper was published on 7 June 1844. At its regularly scheduled meeting on 8 June, the Nauvoo City Council discussed the Expositor and the individuals associated with it. During these deliberations, JS suggested that the city pass an ordinance against misrepresentations and libelous publications.
Two days later, on 10 June, the city council met again to consider measures to take against the newspaper. During its afternoon session, the council passed the proposed ordinance against libels. JS then urged the council to take more immediate action against the Expositor. In particular, he encouraged the council to declare the newspaper a nuisance and remove it as such. Most of the council’s members expressed their approval of this course of action. Only Councilor , who was not a member of the , urged caution and suggested the council give the proprietors “a few days” notice to desist publishing the alleged libels and then assess heavy fines for noncompliance. Other members of the city council, however, questioned how effective this strategy would be in silencing the Expositor. The council instead passed a resolution—with all members except Warrington voting in favor of it—declaring the Expositor’s printing equipment and any copies of the newspaper in its printing office a nuisance and ordering JS as mayor to remove them in a manner of his choosing. Alderman , who was serving as president pro tempore for the meeting, then signed the resolution. That same day, JS complied with the resolution, ordering city marshal to destroy the Nauvoo Expositor’s press.
The city council’s original resolution was apparently written on the same leaf as JS’s order to . The press was destroyed on 10 June, and JS and others involved were subsequently charged with committing a riot. They were ordered, by issuance of a warrant, to appear for a hearing in , Illinois. In connection with this charge, JS secured the assistance of two lawyers, and . On 24 June, JS’s attorneys wrote him a letter requesting that he send them the original order for the press’s destruction, which presumably would have included the city council’s original resolution as well. The next day, , JS’s private clerk, complied with this request. It may have been at this point that Clayton made a copy of both the resolution and the order to retain in . The Nauvoo Neighbor published a slightly altered form of the resolution in its 17 June 1844 extra and 19 June 1844 issue.
The city council’s original resolution, sent to JS’s attorneys, is apparently not extant. The handwritten copy made by is featured here, with significant differences between the manuscript and published versions noted.

Footnotes

  1. JS, Journal, 7 June 1844; Nauvoo Expositor, 7 June 1844.

  2. Minutes, 8 June 1844; see also Ordinance, 10 June 1844.

  3. Ordinance, 10 June 1844; Minutes, 10 June 1844; “For the Neighbor,” Nauvoo Neighbor, Extra, 17 June 1844, [1]; see also Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 10 June 1844, 210–211.

  4. Mayor’s Order to Nauvoo City Marshal, 10 June 1844.

  5. Historical Introduction to Petition to Nauvoo Municipal Court, 12 June 1844; Clayton, Journal, 12 June 1844.

    Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

  6. Letters from Hugh T. Reid and James W. Woods, 24 June 1844; Clayton, History of the Nauvoo Temple, 31; Clayton, Journal, 25 June 1844.

    Clayton, William. History of the Nauvoo Temple, ca. 1845. CHL. MS 3365.

    Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.

  7. “For the Neighbor,” Nauvoo Neighbor, Extra, 17 June 1844, [1]; “For the Neighbor,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 19 June 1844, [3].

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation.
Resolution, 10 June 1844
Resolution, 10 June 1844, as Published in Nauvoo Neighbor –A Resolution, 10 June 1844, as Published in Nauvoo Neighbor –B History, 1838–1856, volume F-1 [1 May 1844–8 August 1844] “History of Joseph Smith”

Page [1]

Resolved by the City Council of the City of that the printing establishment from whence issues the “Nauvoo Expositor” is a public Nuisance and also all of said Nauvoo Expositors which may be, or exist in said establishment, and the Mayor is instructed to cause said printing establishment and papers to be removed without delay, in such manner as he shall direct
Prs— Pro Tem
Passed June 10— 1844)
Recorder)
 
[See Mayor’s Order to Nauvoo City Marshal, 10 June 1844.] [p. [1]]
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Source Note

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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Resolution, 10 June 1844
ID #
18437
Total Pages
1
Print Volume Location
Handwriting on This Page
  • William Clayton

Footnotes

  1. The version of this resolution published by the Nauvoo Neighbor substitutes the word “office” for “establishment.” The Nauvoo Expositor’s printing office was in Nauvoo’s third (southeastern) municipal ward in lot 4 of block 19 of the Wells addition (on the north side of Mulholland Street between Woodruff and Page streets). (“For the Neighbor,” Nauvoo Neighbor, Extra, 17 June 1844, [1]; “For the Neighbor,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 19 June 1844, [3].)

  2. William Blackstone, an influential English legal commentator, divided nuisances into two classes: “public or common nuisances,” which affect an entire community, and “private nuisances,” which affect an individual. The act incorporating Nauvoo, also called the Nauvoo charter, granted the city council the power “to make regulations to secure the general health of the inhabitants, to declare what shall be a nuisance, and to prevent and remove the same.” On 10 June 1844, the city council also declared an old barn on Hyde Street a nuisance and ordered it to be removed. (Blackstone, Commentaries, vol. 2, bk. 3, p. 170, italics in original; Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840; Minutes, 10 June 1844; Alanson Ripley et al. to Nauvoo City Council, Petition, Nauvoo, IL, 10 June 1844, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 10 June 1844, 212.)

    Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England: In Four Books; with an Analysis of the Work. By Sir William Blackstone, Knt. One of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas. In Two Volumes, from the Eighteenth London Edition. . . . 2 vols. New York: W. E. Dean, 1840.

  3. JS, as mayor, asked alderman Harris to chair, or preside over, the 10 June city council meeting. (Minutes, 10 June 1844.)