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Sidney Rigdon, Appeal to the American People, 1840, Second Edition

Page 53

Source Note

[], An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri, second edition; i-vi, 7–60 pp.; Cincinnati, OH: Shepard and Stearns, 1840. The copy used herein is held at CHL.

Historical Introduction

While incarcerated at , Missouri, in March 1839, JS addressed a letter to the church “at Illinois and scattered abroad and to in particular,” instructing the Saints to gather up “a knowledge of all the facts and sufferings and abuses put upon them by the people of this ”. Among the earliest responses to JS’s call was ’s pamphlet, An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri (Cincinnati: Glezen and Shepard, 1840).
A manuscript draft of this pamphlet, simply titled “To the Publick” was presented to a conference of church members at , Illinois, on 1 November 1839. The conference voted to approve the manuscript and authorized its publication on behalf of the church. The pamphlet, when published, carried the endorsement of JS, , and as “Presidents of said Church.”
and collaborated on the publication of the text, which was available in print by May 1840. Though no author is named on the title page, was acknowledged as author in an 1840 Times and Seasons newspaper article, and when the pamphlet was advertised in that church periodical in 1841. JS and held some expectation that funds from the sale of An Appeal would eventually help defray costs of their late-1839 trip to .
By July 1840, and had been authorized to produce a second, revised edition to be published by Shepard & Stearns in . Page related some of the circumstances surrounding its publication and circulation in a letter sent to JS, “. . . at [Ohio] we parted for a few days . . . Elder Hyde went to Cincinnati where in my absince he published a second Edition of the ‘Apeal to the American people’ (2000 copies)[.] when I arrived the work was about completed[.] after disposing of as many of them as posible and suplying the market about cincinnati and the adjacient country he left me with some fourteen or fifteen hundred on hand, to dispose of” (John E. Page, Philadelphia, PA, to JS et al., Nauvoo, IL, 1 Sept. 1841, JS Collection, CHL). Funds from this printing were to be for the express purpose of subsidizing Hyde and Page’s imminent mission to in Palestine.
The second edition was essentially a lightly edited reprint of the first, with a four-page “Publisher’s Preface” added. In the preface, and noted the purpose of the publication, explained the severe hardships imposed by the persecutions upon Page’s own family, provided a detailed account of a vision experienced by Hyde, and expressed enthusiasm about the prospects of the mission. The preface also contained a copy of an official letter of appointment and commendation for Hyde and Page from an April 1840 church conference at , Illinois, signed by JS, and a letter of reference from , governor of .
Although many of the events reported in both editions of ’s pamphlet can be corroborated from other sources, his chronology of events is often inaccurate. However, Rigdon’s account does contain the texts of several significant documents. Among these are JS’s September 1838 affidavit concerning the 7 August 1838 visit to and those of and regarding the massacre. Consequently, though in many respects Rigdon’s document from a historical perspective is more advocacy than history, it offers access to some important material not readily found elsewhere.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Letter to the Church and Edward Partridge, 20 March 1839 [D&C 123:1, 6].

  2. [2]

    Sidney Rigdon, JS, et al., Petition Draft (“To the Publick”), circa 1838–1839.

  3. [3]

    “A History, of the Persecution,” Times and Seasons, May 1840, 1:99; Advertisement, Times and Seasons, 1 Jan. 1841, 1:272.

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

  4. [4]

    Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 1:103–104.

    Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Statement, circa 1 November 1839–B *Affidavit, 5 September 1838 [ State of Missouri v. JS et al. for Riot ]

Page 48

turb him. I intend to do it, said he, in order to escape, for if I do not they will take my life. To aid him in this work, there was standing a body of armed men; a part of this armed body stood in the presence of the court to see that the witnesses swore right, and another part was scouring the county to drive out of it every witness that they could hear of whose testimony would be favorable to the defendants. This course was kept up during the whole time of the court. If a witness did not swear to please the court, he or she would be threatened to be cast into prison. They never pleased the court when their testimony was favorable to the defendants. One instance is all the proof that need be adduced on this head. A man by the name of Allen was called on, he began to tell the story about ’s burning houses in the south part of , he was kicked out of the house, and three men took after him with loaded guns, and he hardly escaped with his life. Every witness that the defendants had (that these creatures knew of, and they made diligent search to find all they could) were either arrested under pretention of some charge, or else driven off. When a witness did not swear to please the attorney () he would order them to be taken into custody, and they were immediately cast into prison, and the next morning they would be brought forward and tried again. Such was the course the court and their armed body pursued during their sittings till they got through; by such means they got men to swear for them, and to swear to most unhallowed falsehoods. It was indeed suborning witnesses to swear to promise a man’s life if he would swear, and death or imprisonment if he did not swear, and not only to swear, but swear to please them.
This matter of driving away witnesses or casting them into prison, or chasing them out of the county, was carried to such a length that our lawyers, and , told us not to bring our witnesses there at all, for if we did there would not be one of them left for the final trial, for no sooner would and his men know who they were, than they would put them out of the county. As to make any impression on , if a cohort of angels were to come down and declare we were clear, said it would all be the same, for he () had determined from the beginning to cast us into prison; we never got the privilege of introducing our witnesses at all; if we had we could have disproved all they swore.
We here must rather go back a little, for after arrived at , he arrested a great many persons, an account of which will be found in the memorial of the citizens of to the Legislature of . Their trials also went on at the same time. One thing in relation to ’s proceeding we forgot to mention—we will insert it here. After he had arrived, some persons made application for a privilege to go and plunder houses for goods, this was readily granted; and, under this authority, houses were plundered, locks broken, and property taken at pleasure—and all this without any civil process whatever.
We will here give a specimen or two of their swearing. We will first introduce . This said was angry at one of the prisoners, , in consequence of a lawsuit existing between them. , we suppose, thought he had a fair opportunity now to take vengeance in swearing against him; so [p. 48]
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Editorial Title
Sidney Rigdon, Appeal to the American People, 1840, Second Edition
ID #
7509
Total Pages
62
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