Volume 3 — Introduction to Volume III. (continued 2)

The author of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" gives the following pen-picture of conditions with reference to religious toleration which obtained in the empire under the reign of the Antonines, Adrian and Marcus Aurelius, second century, A. D, "The firm edifice of Roman power was raised and preserved by the wisdom of ages. The obedient provinces of Trajan and the Antonines were united by laws, and adorned by arts. They might occasionally suffer from the partial abuse of delegated authority; but the general principle of government was wise, simple, and beneficent. They enjoyed the religion of their ancestors, whilst in civil honors and advantages they were exalted, by just degrees, to an equality with their conquerors. The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. The superstition of the people was not embittered by any mixture of theological rancor; nor was it confined by the chains of any speculative system. The devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different religions of the earth. Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey, perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief, and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture of the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not discordant materials. As soon as it was allowed that sages and heroes, who had lived or who had died for the benefit of their country, were exalted to a state of power and immortality, it was universally confessed that they deserved, if not the adoration, at least the reverence, of all mankind. The deities of a thousand groves and a thousand streams possessed in peace their local and respective influence: nor could the Roman who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers of nature, the planets, and the elements, were the same throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory. Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative; every art and profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the character of their peculiar votaries. A republic of gods of such opposite tempers and interests required, in every system, the moderating hand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of knowledge and flattery, was gradually invested with the sublime perfections of an eternal parent, and an omnipotent monarch. Such was the mild spirit of antiquity, that the nations were less attentive to the difference, than to the resemblance, of their religious worship. The Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian, as they met before their respective altars, easily persuaded themselves, that under various names, and with various ceremonies, they adored the same deities. * * * * Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly filled with subjects and strangers from every part of the world, who all introduced and enjoyed the favorite superstitions of their native country. Every city in the empire was justified in maintaining the purity of its ancient ceremonies; and the Roman senate, using the common privilege, sometimes interposed to check this inundation of foreign rites. The Egyptian superstition, of all the most contemptible and abject, was frequently prohibited; the temples of Serapis and Isis demolished, and their worshippers banished from Rome and Italy. But the zeal of fanaticism prevailed over the cold and feeble efforts of policy. The exiles returned, the proselytes multiplied, the temples were restored with increasing splendor, and Isis and Serapis at length assumed their place among the Roman deities. * * * * Rome gradually became the common temple of her subjects; and the freedom of the city was bestowed on all the gods of mankind."^[44]

Some Christian editors of Gibbon's great work, in their annotations, hold that the author of the "Decline and Fall" gives in the foregoing a too favorable view of pagan religious toleration; but after giving due weight to the instances of intolerance they cite in evidence of their contention, and viewing them in connection with the extent of the empire and the period of time covered by Gibbon's description, I do not regard them as of sufficient importance to warrant any change in the representation made by our author of conditions as to religious toleration in the Roman empire at the time of which he writes. Especially, since Gibbon himself in a foot note admits that "some obscure traces of an intolerant spirit appears in the conduct of the Egyptians," the case chiefly relied upon by his critics to disprove his description of universal religious toleration in the empire; and in the same note he refers to the Christians and the Jews as forming an important exception; so important an exception indeed that he promises, and subsequently gives, a distinct chapter to the discussion of the subject.^[45]

It is to Christianity as the chief exception to the Roman policy of universal religious toleration that I wish now to direct attention. Let it be borne in mind that the spirit of universal religious toleration within the Roman empire claimed for the second century of our era, largely obtained also in the first century. It was in this reign of universal religious toleration that the Christian religion was brought forth and developed. Christ was born in the eighteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, in the Roman province of Palestine, in which, also, His personal labors as religious teacher and reformer were chiefly confined. In the villages of Galilee, and subsequently in Samaria and Judea and in the ancient city of Jerusalem, He went about doing good; speaking words of encouragement to the oppressed and the poor; healing the sick; opening the eyes of the blind; cleansing the lepers; teaching, as no one ever taught before, the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of men, and proclaiming Himself the Son of God and the Redeemer of the world. He gathered about Him a few devout followers, and from their number He established a priesthood and organized a Church to perpetuate the gentle doctrines He Himself taught. Strangely enough, notwithstanding the beauty and purity of His moral precepts, and the gentleness of His own deportment, proclamation of His doctrines everywhere incited hostility. The people of the village in which He was reared rejected Him. His own people, the Jews, were so hostile that they at last clamored for His execution; and so deep was their hatred that they were willing that responsibility for the shedding of His blood should be upon their heads and upon the heads of their children after them, if only the Roman authorities would sanction His execution! He was finally crucified amid the rejoicings of His enemies.

After His resurrection He appeared among His disciples and commissioned them to evangelize the world. As they went about this work they encountered the same spirit of opposition that had met their Master. Whippings, imprisonment, and martyrdom confronted them on every hand, and when they extended their labors beyond the borders of Palestine, notwithstanding the general religious tolerance that obtained in the Roman empire, the Christians were everywhere spoken against, and their ministers everywhere opposed and persecuted.

Passing by the persecutions inflicted upon the Christians by the Jews—the whipping of Peter and John, under the order of the Jewish Sanhedrim, the martyrdom of Stephen, the execution of Saint James, the repeated mobbing and whippings of Paul—I call attention to the first great pagan persecution under the cruel edict of the Emperor Nero, in the second half of the first Christian century. The emperor having set on fire the city of Rome in order that he might view a great conflagration, and wishing to divert suspicion from himself, he first accused and then tried to compel the Christians to confess the crime. At this point I summon Tacitus, the renowned Roman annalist, to tell the remainder of the story:

"With this view he inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men who, under the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with deserved infamy. They derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate. For awhile this dire superstition was checked, but it again burst forth, and not only spread itself over Judea, the first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum, which receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The confessions of those that were seized discovered a great multitude of their accomplices, and they were all convicted not so much for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human kind. They died in torments, and their torments were embittered by insults and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and exposed to the fury of dogs; others, again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse race, and honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishments, but the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration from the opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much to the public welfare as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant."^[46]

This first great persecution of the Christians under the authority of the Roman emperor, is sufficiently characteristic to describe the other persecutions which were intermittingly perpetrated upon the Christians through the two succeeding centuries. What seems to be the most incongruous circumstance connected with these persecutions is, that they occurred not only under such wretches as Nero and Domitian, but under such virtuous emperors as Trajan, Adrian, Marcus Aurelius and Diocletian. Intermittingly, then, through three troubled centuries, and under circumstances of the utmost cruelty, persecution raged against the Christians. As the highest authority on Roman history remarks: "If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber had, or the Nile had not risen above its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious pagans were convinced that the crimes and impurities of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice."^[47] And however virtuous the emperors were, or however mild and equitable in character the governors of the provinces, it is certain that they did not hesitate to appease the rage of the people by sacrificing the obnoxious Christian victims. All this at a time, too, when religious tolerance and in large measure even religious freedom were enjoyed by those of all other religions within the empire, and in fact we may say that the persecution of the Christians was the only circumstance which broke in upon the religious concord of the world. From the apologies of the early church fathers, addressed to some of the emperors of the second and third centuries, we find them making the most pathetic complaints to the effect, "that the Christians who obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty of conscience, were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman empire, excluded from the common benefits of their auspicious government."

Why was this? Surely it did not arise from any vicious principle inherent in the Christian religion itself. "If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian religion," remarks Gibbon, in the opening paragraph of his great treatise on the "Conduct of the Roman Government Toward the Christians," "the sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocence as well as the austere lives of the greater number of those who, during the first ages, embraced the faith of the gospel, we should naturally suppose that so benevolent a doctrine would have been received with due reverence even by the unbelieving world; that the learned and polite, however they might deride the miracles, would have esteemed the virtues of the new sect; and that the magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected an order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws, though they declined the active cares of war and government. If, on the other hand, we recollect the universal tolerance of polytheism, as it was invariably maintained by the faith of the people, the incredulity of philosophers, and the policy of the Roman senate and emperors, we are at a loss to discover what new offense the Christians had committed, what new provocation could exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and what new motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without concern a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their gentle sway, to inflict a severe punishment upon any part of their subjects who had chosen for themselves a singular but an inoffensive mode of faith and worship."^[48]

What, then, I again ask, was the cause of the singular departure from the enlightened policy of the empire in granting religious toleration and even large religious freedom to its subjects? I am sure that modern Christians will scarcely be satisfied with the various causes assigned for this strange conduct on the part of the Roman emperors who persecuted the Christians. These causes, or at least the principal ones, are conceded by both infidel and Christian authorities to be:

First, the Christians were a sect and not a nation, and were open to the charge that they had deserted the faith of their forefathers, a thing inexplicable to the Roman mind. It could be claimed on the part of the Christians, of course, that this was not true; that so far were they from deserting the faith of their fathers, that their present Christian faith was but the complement of their fathers' faith, the fulfillment alike of its prophecies and symbols—in a word, the gospel was the fulfillment of the law. This, however, was a refinement of explanation to which the haughty Romans could not be expected to give attention.

Second, the Christians condemned and abhorred the public religion of the state, so closely connected with the affairs of the government, and hence they were judged to be enemies of the state, a circumstance which made them objects of detestation to those intrusted with the administration of the laws.

Third, the Christians in their worship employed no images, nor temples, nor incense, nor sacrifices; neither did they represent their God by any corporeal figure or symbol, therefore they were adjudged to be atheists, and accordingly detested.

Fourth, the gloom and austere aspect of the Christians, and their thorough abhorrence of the common business and pleasures of life, their denunciation of war, together with their frequent predictions of impending divine judgments, caused them to be regarded as the enemies of mankind.

Fifth, the secrecy in which they conducted their religious services (a policy first born of necessity, because of the fear of their adversaries, and afterwards continued under the false notion that it would render their sacred institutions more respectable) drew upon them the suspicion that they only "concealed what they would have blushed to disclose;" and this left them open to the misrepresentation and calumny of their enemies, by which the fury of the multitude was aroused against them.

Sixth, the severe simplicity of the Christian mode of worship, employing as it did neither sacrifices nor an elaborate priesthood—excited the animosity of the pagan priests and their servitors, in exact proportion as the Christians became a menace to their occupation; for it was painfully apparent to them that if Christianity was successful there would be no need of the pagan priesthood—its occupation would be gone.

All these alleged causes for the persecution of the Christians within the Roman empire may be allowed, though some of them may be more properly regarded as pretexts for, than causes of the persecution. But back of all the assigned causes—which are at best but secondary in their nature—one may see moving a force, the primary cause of the persecution, of which the apprehensions of magistrates, the hatred of the pagan priesthood, and the clamor of the multitude were but the outward manifestations. That primary cause of the persecution of the Christians is to be found in the bitter hatred of that dark spirit who in heaven, before he fell from his high estate, was known under the splendid appellation of "The Light Bearer," "Lucifer," "Son of the Morning," as high in favor as in station, before his sin of rebellion against the Father-God.^[49]

Beyond the mere fact that he impiously did rebel in heaven against God, and that he was impelled thereto by a vaulting ambition which overleaped itself, the Hebrew scriptures give us little information concerning Lucifer. No cause for the rebellion is assigned, though evidence of the fact and reality of the rebellion is abundant.^[50] In some ancient scripture revealed to Joseph Smith, however, the cause of that Lucifer-led rebellion is stated. It was immediately connected with man's earth-life, and the means and conditions of his salvation.

In order that the reader may appreciate the force of the truth to be presented, it is necessary to remind him that the spirit of man had an existence before he dwelt in his body of flesh and bones—a self-conscious existence, in which he possessed all the faculties and attributes that the spirit or mind of man now possesses; that the time had come when the present earth-life became necessary to his continued progress; that all that would take place in that earth-life was known to God—the fall of man, the wickedness of the human race, the redemption through the atonement of a sinless sacrifice—all was known, and for all these events ample provisions were to be made; one chosen to open the series of dispensations that should make up the history of man's earth-life; one chosen to redeem man from his fallen state. It was at this point that Lucifer came before the grand council in heaven saying: Behold—here am I, send me, I will be Thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me Thine honor. "But, behold," said the Lord, "My Beloved Son, which was My Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto Me—Father, Thy will be done, and the glory be Thine forever. Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against Me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him; and also that I should give unto him Mine own power; by the power of Mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down; and he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto My voice."^[51]

This discloses the reason of Lucifer's rebellion—opposition to the plan of man's redemption—a counter plan that involved the destruction of the agency of man. Then what?

"I beheld Satan," says Jesus, "as lightning fall from heaven."^[52]

"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation. He hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day."^[53]

"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."^[54]

Lucifer, then, becomes a factor to be reckoned with in the persecution of the Saints. In heaven he opposed the gospel of Jesus Christ; cast out into the earth will he not oppose it there? Herein lies the real cause of the persecution of the Christians within the Roman empire. So long as the inhabitants of the earth were content with the pagan superstitions, wherein there was no power of God unto salvation; so long as they were content with conflicting pagan philosophies, wherein was no power of God unto salvation, it was a matter of indifference to Lucifer whether they worshiped Jupiter Olympus, or Isis; Apollo, or Minerva; or bowed at the philosopher's shrine of the Unknown God—all were equally barren of saving power and left the kingdom of Lucifer undiminished in its strength and numbers; left all nations in his thraldom. But when the Christ and His apostles came preaching repentance and the coming of the kingdom of heaven; making known the origin of man and his relationship to Deity; making known the purpose of God to redeem him from his fallen state; establishing His Church as the depository of divine truth, and the instrumentality for conveying to man divine instruction—then Lucifer saw cause for alarm, for it was evident that the days of his dominion were numbered; his kingdom must decline if Christianity prevailed; his sway over the kingdoms of the earth must be broken if Christ was preached: and hence in all the bitterness of hatred, with all the strength of his cunning, with all the power of his resourcefulness, and using every instrumentality he could command—corrupted human nature over which he had influence; the apprehension of magistrates; the jealousy of pagan priesthoods—all were employed to destroy that institution wrought out in the wisdom of God to bring to pass the salvation of man; and hence the fire, the sword and the rack; the lions, the dungeons,—in a word, the pagan persecutions of the Saints of God; Lucifer and his hatred of the truth the primary cause of all, all other causes and pretexts but secondary, mere instrumentalities used by him to impede the progress of and destroy, if possible, the truth, the gospel, wherein lies the power of man's salvation.

It is said that history repeats itself; and this in matters of religion as in other things. In the introduction to the first volume of the Church History, the paganization of Christianity was discussed at some length, and when the Lord would again prepare the way for the incoming of the last dispensation of the Gospel—the dispensation of the fullness of times—as part of that preparation, He established a great republic in the New World, the chief corner stone of whose temple of liberty was religious freedom. The Congress of the United States, by express provision of the Constitution, is prohibited from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.^[55] Similar guarantees of religious freedom are provided for in the constitutions of all the states. The clause in Missouri's constitution on the subject was as follows:

"All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; that no man can be compelled to erect, support or attend any place of worship, or to maintain any minister of the gospel or teacher of religion; that no human authority can control or interfere with the rights of conscience; that no person can ever be hurt, molested or restrained in his religious professions or sentiments, if he do not disturb others in their religious worship: that no person, on account of his religious opinions, can be rendered ineligible to any office of trust or profit under this state; that no preference can ever be given by law to any sect or mode of worship; and that no religious corporation can ever be established in this state."

Under these guarantees of religious liberty, in both state and national constitutions, infidels, Jews, and all sects of the Christian religion lived in unbroken peace. In the colonial history of the country there had been some intolerance and acts of violence practiced by the sects of Christians on one another, but in the main, and especially since the establishment of the republic of the United States, under its present Constitution, there had been absolute religious freedom. But now a strange thing occurred. A youth, yet in his early teens, startled the neighborhood in which he resided with the announcement that he had received a revelation from God: a new dispensation of the Gospel of Christ had been committed to him; he is authorized to found again the very Church of Christ; men are to teach once more by divine authority; and the world is to be made ready for the incoming of the glorious kingdom, whose king shall be the resurrected, glorified Christ; and peace and truth and righteousness are to abound. Strangely enough, notwithstanding all the guarantees of religious freedom in the state and national constitutions, this proclamation is resented by the people, and those who advocate it are persecuted in various ways, until at the last, as set forth in the three volumes of the Church History now published, it culminated in the death and misery of many souls, and the final expulsion of from twelve to fifteen thousand Saints from the state of Missouri, under all the circumstances of cruelty detailed in this history.

Why is this violence done to the principle of religious freedom, a principle that is both the pride and boast of the American people? Why are constitutions and institutions violated in efforts made by the authorities of the sovereign state of Missouri to destroy this religion and this Church of Christ? What is the cause of these Missouri persecutions? In view of the principles already set forth in these pages, the primary cause of these persecutions in Missouri will not be difficult to find. In them, as in the Roman persecutions of the Christians, the cunning and power of Lucifer will be apparent. So long as only apostate forms of Christianity obtained; so long as men adhered to mere forms of godliness and denied the power thereof, so long Lucifer cared not with what devotion they clung to these lifeless forms of religion. He laughed; his kingdom was undiminished; the nations were held in his thraldom. But when the Prophet of the dispensation of the fulness of times announced his revelation; when God again stood revealed once more before a witness; when the divine plan of life and salvation was again communicated to men through an inspired prophet; when the Church of Christ in all its completeness and power was restored to the earth, then it behoved Lucifer to look to his dominions, to strengthen his forces, and to prepare for the final conflict for possession of this world; for now God had taken it in hand to complete His work of redeeming the earth, of saving men, and overthrowing Lucifer and his power so far as this earth is concerned; and hence when Joseph Smith announced his new revelation, the incoming of the dispensation of the fulness of times, Lucifer with all the cunning and power at his command, and setting in motion every force—the fears and jealousies of men, misrepresentation and calumny, hatred of righteousness and truth, in a word, every force that he could summons, every pretext that he could suggest to men of evil disposed minds was employed to destroy the inauguration of that work which was to subdue his power, conquer his dominions, and render men free from his influence. Lucifer's bitterness, then, his hatred, his cunning, his devisements were the cause of the Missouri persecutions. All else was secondary, pretext, his instrumentalities, nothing more.

Retribution.

But what of Missouri? Missouri, who had violated her constitution which guaranteed religious freedom to all who came within her borders! Missouri, whose officers from the Governor down entered into a wicked conspiracy, contrary to all law and righteousness, and drove the Saints from the state! Missouri, who had violated not only her own constitution by becoming a party to a religious persecution, but had also violated the spirit of our times, and outraged the civilization of the nineteenth century—what of Missouri? Did she pay any penalty for her wrong-doing? Are states such entities as may be held to an accounting for breaches of public faith and public morals—constitutional immoralities? Is there within the state a public conscience to which an appeal can be made; and in the event of the public conscience being outraged is there retribution?

I answer these questions in the affirmative; and hold that Missouri paid dearly for the violations of her guarantees of religious freedom, and her lawlessness and her cruelties practiced towards the Latter-day Saints.

I have already referred to the relationship which the state of Missouri sustained to the great question of slavery. By the political compromise which bore her name, Missouri became a "cape of slavery thrust into free territory." Except for the state of Missouri alone, her southern boundary line was to mark the furthermost point northward beyond which slavery must not be extended into the territory of the United States. In 1854, however, the Missouri compromise was practically overthrown by the introduction into Congress of the "Kansas-Nebraska Act," by Stephen A. Douglas, United States senator from Illinois. This act provided for the organization of two new territories from the Louisiana purchase, west of Missouri and Iowa. The act proposed that the new territories should be open to slavery, if their inhabitants desired it. This left the question of slavery in the status it occupied previous to the Missouri Compromise, and left the people in the prospective states to determine for themselves whether slavery should or should not prevail in their state. This opened again the slavery question, and there was begun that agitation which finally resulted in the great American Civil War.

As soon as it became apparent that the people of new territories were to determine for themselves the question of slavery, very naturally each party began a struggle for possession of the new territory according as its sentiments or interests dictated. The struggle began by the abolition party of the north organizing "Emigrant Aid Societies," and sending emigrants of their own faith into Kansas. The slave holders of Missouri also sent settlers representing their faith and interests into the new territory in the hope of bringing it into the Union as a slave state. This brought on a border warfare in which the settlements of western Missouri and eastern Kansas alternately suffered from the raids and counter raids of the respective parties through some six years before the outbreak of the Civil War. As to which were the more lawless or cruel, the fanatical abolitionists or the pro-slavery party, the "jayhawkers," as the organized bands of ruffians of the former party were called, or the "bushwhackers," as the similarly organized bands of the pro-slavery men were called, is not a question necessary for me to discuss here. Both held the laws in contempt, and vied with each other in committing atrocities. The western counties of Missouri, where the Latter-day Saints had suffered so cruelly at the hands of people of those counties some eighteen or twenty years before, were in this border warfare laid desolate, and all the hardships the Missourians had inflicted upon the Saints were now visited upon their heads, only more abundantly.

Speaking of the situation in Missouri in 1861, the out-going Governor, Robert M. Stewart, in his address to the legislature, and referring to Missouri and her right to be heard on the slavery question, said:

"Missouri has a right to speak on this subject, because she has suffered. Bounded on three sides by free territory, her border counties have been the frequent scenes of kidnapping and violence, and this state has probably lost as much, in the last two years, in the abduction of slaves, as all the rest of the Southern States. At this moment several of the western counties are desolated, and almost depopulated, from fear of a bandit horde, who have been committing depredations—arson, theft, and foul murder—upon the adjacent border"^[56]

Brigadier-General Daniel M. Frost, who had been employed in repressing lawlessness in the western counties of Missouri, in reporting conditions prevailing there in November, 1860, said:

"The deserted and charred remains of once happy homes, combined with the general terror that prevailed amongst the citizens who still clung to their possessions, gave but too certain proof of the persecution to which they had all been subjected, and which they would again have to endure, with renewed violence, so soon as armed protection should be withdrawn." [note] "In view of this condition of affairs," continues the historian of Missouri I am quoting, "and in order to carry out fully Governor Stewart's order to repel invasions and restore peace to the border, General Frost determined to leave a considerable force in the threatened district. Accordingly, a battalion of volunteers, consisting of three companies of rangers and one of artillery, was enlisted, and Lieutenant-Colonel John S. Bowen, who afterwards rose to high rank in the Confederate service, was chosen to the command."^[57]

"With the organization of this force, and perhaps owing also, in some degree, to the inclemency of the season, 'jayhawking,' as such, came to an end, though the thing itself, during the first two or three years of the Civil War, and, in fact, as long as there was anything left on the Missouri side of the border worth taking, flourished more vigorously than ever. The old jayhawking leaders, however, now came with United States commissions in their pockets and at the head of regularly enlisted troops, in which guise they carried on a system of robbery and murder that left a good portion of the frontier south of the Missouri river as perfect a waste as Germany was at the end of the Thirty Years' War."^[58]

While this description confines the scenes of violence and rapine to the border counties south of the Missouri river,—it included Jackson county, however, which was one of the heaviest sufferers both in this border warfare and subsequently during the Civil War—still, the counties north of that stream also suffered from lawlessness and violence.

At the outbreak of the Civil War Missouri was peculiarly situated. She was surrounded on three sides by free states. The great majority of her own people were for the Union, but her government, with Clairborne Jackson as the state executive, was in sympathy with the South. As the extreme Southern States one after another seceded from the Union, Missouri was confronted with the question: What position she ought to assume in the impending conflict. The question was referred to a state convention in which appeared no secessionists. Indeed, the people of Missouri in this election by a majority of eighty thousand decided against secession. The convention, in setting forth the attitude of the state on the subject, said that Missouri's position was, "Evidently that of a state whose interests are bound up in the maintenance of the Union, and whose kind feelings and strong sympathies are with the people of the Southern States, with whom we are connected by ties of friendship and blood. We want the peace and harmony of the country restored, and we want them with us. To go with them as they are now * * * * is to ruin ourselves without doing them any good."^[59]

While this doubtless voiced the sentiment of a great majority of Missouri's people, the government of the state and many thousands of its inhabitants sympathized with the South. The general assembly of the state authorized the raising and equipment of large military forces held subject, of course, to the orders of the governor, under the pretense of being prepared to repel invasion from any quarter whatsoever, and enable the state to maintain a neutral attitude. The governor refused to raise Missouri's quota of four regiments under President Lincoln's first call for seventy-five thousand men to suppress the rebellion, on the ground that these regiments were intended to form "part of the President's army, to make war upon the people of the seceded states." This he declared to be illegal, unconstitutional, and therefore could not be complied with. This precipitated a conflict between the state and national forces that resulted in a civil war within the state since some of her citizens sided with the general government and some with the state.

On the 20th of April, 1861, the state militia under the governor's orders captured the Federal arsenal at Liberty, Clay county, and in the nineteen months following that event "over three hundred battles and skirmishes were fought within the limits of the state," and it is assumed that in the last two years of the war, there were half as many more; "and it may be said of them," continues our historian, "that they were relatively more destructive of life, as by this time the contest had degenerated into a disgraceful internecine struggle."^[60]

In the fall of 1864, General Sterling Price penetrated the state at the head of twelve thousand men; captured Lexington, in Ray county, and Independence, in Jackson county, and thence made his escape into Arkansas. "In the course of this raid he marched 1,434 miles, fought forty-three battles and skirmishes, and according to his own calculation destroyed upwards of 'ten million dollars' worth of property,' a fair share of which belonged to his own friends."^[61]

In August, 1863, the celebrated Military Order No. 11 was issued from Kansas City, by General Thomas Ewing, by which "all persons living in Cass, Jackson, and Bates counties, Missouri, and in that part of Vernon included in this district, except those living within one mile of the limits of Independence, Hickman's Mills, Pleasant Hill, and Harrisonville, and except those in that part of Kaw township, Jackson county, north of Brush creek and west of the Big Blue, embracing Kansas City and Westport, are hereby ordered to remove from their present places of residence within fifteen days from the date hereof. Those who, within that time, establish their loyalty to the satisfaction of the commanding officer of the military station nearest their present place of residence, will receive from him certificates stating the fact of their loyalty, and the names of the witnesses by whom it can be shown. All who receive such certificates will be permitted to remove to any military station in this district, or to any part of the state of Kansas, except the counties on the eastern borders of the state. All others shall remove out of this district. Officers commanding companies and detachments serving in the counties named will see that this paragraph is promptly obeyed."^[62]

The admonition in the last clause to commanding officers was rigidly followed; and within the district named scenes of violence and cruelty were appalling. This order with its cruel execution has been more severely criticized than any other act during the entire Civil War. The justification for it has been urged on the ground that Jackson county afforded a field of operations for Confederates; that here the bushwhacking marauders recruited their forces, and found the means of support; that the policy was necessary on the ground of putting an end to that kind of warfare. On the other hand, it is contended that "tried by any known standard," the people in that section of Missouri were as loyal to the Union as were their neighbors in Kansas. "They had voted against secession; they had not only, thus far, kept their quota in the Union army full, and that without draft or bounty, but they continued to do so; and if they did not protect themselves against the outrages alike of Confederate bushwhackers and Union jayhawkers, it was because early in the war they had been disarmed by Federal authority and were consequently without the means of defense."^[63]

By the execution of the order, however, the people in the districts named "were driven from their homes, their dwellings burned, their farms laid waste, and the great bulk of their movable property handed over, without let or hindrance, to the Kansas 'jayhawkers.' It was a brutal order, ruthlessly enforced, but so far from expelling or exterminating the guerrillas, it simply handed the whole district over to them." "Indeed," continues Lucien Carr, "we are assured by one who was on the ground, that from this time until the end of the war, no one wearing the Federal uniform dared risk his life within the devatasted region. The only people whom the enforcement of the order did injure were some thousands of those whom it was Ewing's duty to protect."^[64]

Whether justified or not by the attitude of the Jackson county people in the Civil War, the execution of Order No. 11 certainly was but a reenactment, though upon a larger scale, of those scenes which the inhabitants of that section of the country thirty years before had perpetrated upon the Latter-day Saints in expelling them from Jackson county. The awful scenes then enacted inspired the now celebrated painting by G. C. Bingham, bearing the title "Civil War," and dedicated by the artist "to all who cherish the principles of civil liberty."

Connected with the scenes of civil strife in Missouri, is a prophecy uttered by Joseph Smith many years before they began, and recently published in a very able paper by Elder Junius F. Wells, in the November number of the Improvement Era for 1902. Elder Wells, it appears, had the pleasure of an interview with the Hon. Leonidas M. Lawson, of New York city, formerly a resident of Clay county, Missouri, and a brother-in-law of General Alexander W. Doniphan, whose name so frequently occurs in our pages, dealing with events in the history of the Church while in Missouri.

In the course of the interview, which took place at the University Club, New York city, Mr. Lawson referred to an incident connected with a visit to General Doniphan in 1863. General Doniphan, it will be remembered by those acquainted with his history, took no part in the Civil War beyond that of a sorrowful spectator. On the occasion of Mr. Lawson's visit to him, just referred to, they rode through Jackson county together, and in a letter to Elder Wells, under date of February 7, 1902, Mr. Lawson relates the following incident, which is part of a biographical sketch of General Doniphan, prepared by Mr. Lawson:

"In the year 1863, I visited General A. W. Doniphan at his home in Liberty, Clay county, Missouri. This was soon after the devastation of Jackson county, Missouri, under what is known as 'Order No. 11.' This devastation was complete. Farms were everywhere destroyed, and the farmhouses were burned. During this visit General Doniphan related the following historical facts and personal incidents:

"About the year 1831-2, the Mormons settled in Jackson county. Mo., under the leadership of Joseph Smith. The people of Jackson county became dissatisfied with their presence, and forced them to leave; and they crossed the Missouri river and settled in the counties of De Kalb, Caldwell and Ray. They founded the town of Far West, and began to prepare the foundation of a temple. It was here that the troubles arose which culminated in the expulsion of the Mormons from the state of Missouri according to the command of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs. This was known in Missouri annals as the Mormon War. There were many among those who obeyed the order of the governor, in the state militia, who believed that the movement against the Mormons was unjust and cruel, and that the excitement was kept up by those who coveted the homes, the barns and the fields of the Mormon people. The latter, during their residence in the state of Missouri, paid, in entry fees for the land they claimed, to the United States government land office, more than $300,000, which, for that period represented a tremendous interest. During their sojourn in Missouri the Mormons did not practice or teach polygamy, so that question did not enter into it.

"Following the early excitement, Joseph Smith was indicted for treason against the state of Missouri, and General Doniphan was one of the counsel employed to defend him, he having shown a friendly interest in Smith, whom he considered very badly treated. Joseph Smith was placed in prison in Liberty, Missouri, to await his trial. This place was the residence of General Doniphan. His partner in the practice of law was James H. Baldwin.

"On one occasion General Doniphan caused the sheriff of the county to bring Joseph Smith from the prison to his law office, for the purpose of consultation about his defense. During Smith's presence in the office, a citizen of Jackson county, Missouri, came in for the purpose of paying a fee which was due by him to the firm of Doniphan and Baldwin, and offered in payment a tract of land in Jackson county.

"Doniphan told him that his partner, Mr. Baldwin, was absent at the moment, but as soon as he had an opportunity he would consult him and decide about the matter. When the Jackson county man retired, Joseph Smith, who had overheard the conversation, addressed General Doniphan about as follows:

"'Doniphan, I advise you not to take that Jackson county land in payment of the debt, God's wrath hangs over Jackson county. God's people have been ruthlessly driven from it, and you will live to see the day when it will be visited by fire and sword. The Lord of Hosts will sweep it with the besom of destruction. The fields and farms and houses will be destroyed, and only the chimneys will be left to mark the desolation.'"

"General Doniphan said to me that the devastation of Jackson county forcibly reminded him of this remarkable prediction of the Mormon prophet." (signed) L. M. Lawson.

"There is a prediction of the Prophet Joseph," remarks Elder Wells, in commenting upon Mr. Lawson's story, "not before put into print, and history has recorded its complete fulfillment."

That a just retribution overtook the entire state, as well as the inhabitants of Jackson county, and other western counties, I think must be conceded by all who are familiar with the events of her history in the Civil War. That which she did to an inoffensive people was done to her inhabitants, especially to those living within the districts formerly occupied by the Latter-day Saints; only the measure meted out to the Missourians was heaped up, pressed down, and made to run over.

The Missourians had complained that the Latter-day Saints were eastern men, whose manners, habits, customs, and even dialect were different from their own;^[65] but the Missourians lived to see great throngs of those same eastern men flock into an adjoining territory and infest their border, so that the settlers of western Missouri became accustomed to, and learned to endure the strange manners, customs and dialect so different from their own.

The Missourians complained of the rapidity with which the Saints were gathering into the state to establish their Zion; but the Missourians lived to see hordes of the detested easterners gather into their region of country by continuous streams of emigrant trains, sent there by "Emigrant Aid Companies" of New England.

The Missourians falsely charged that the coming of "Zion's Camp" into western Missouri to aid their brethren to repossess their homes in Jackson county, was an armed invasion of the state; but the Missourians lived to see formidable hosts of eastern and northern men gather upon their frontiers and frequently invade the state. "The character of much of this emigration may be gathered," says one historian, "from the fact that the Kansas Emigration Societies, Leagues and Committees * * * sent out men only;" and that in some of their bands Sharp's rifles were more numerous than agricultural implements."^[66] Of course the "Blue Lodges" of Missouri were organized largely on the same principle as the "Emigrant Aid Companies" of New England, and adopted practically the same methods, expecting to add Kansas to the list of slave states. But "certainly," remarks Lucien Carr, "if a company of so-called northern emigrants, in which there were two hundred and twenty-five men and only five women, whose wagons contained no visible furniture, agricultural implements or mechanical tools, but abounded in all the requisite articles for camping and campaigning purposes, were considered as bona fide settlers and permitted to vote, there could not have been a sufficient reason for ruling out any band of Missourians who ever crossed the border and declared their intention of remaining, even though they left the next day."^[67]

Among the men sent to the borders of Missouri by the "Emigrant Aid Companies" of New England were some of the most desperate adventurers; and the Missourians who had pretended to be alarmed at the coming of "Zion's Camp," and feigned to regard it as an armed invasion of the state, saw their state repeatedly invaded—especially Jackson county—by the bands of Union "jayhawkers" organized from among these desperate eastern and northern men, who ruthlessly laid waste their homes and farms.

The Missourians had falsely charged the Saints with abolition madness, with tampering with their slaves, with inviting free negroes into the state to corrupt their blacks, whose very presence would render their institution of slave labor insecure; but they lived to see their system of slave labor abolished by the setting free of some one hundred and fifteen thousand slaves, valued at $40,000,000, eight thousand of whom were "martialed and disciplined for war" in the Federal armies, and many of them marched to war against their former masters.

Governor Dunklin and his advisors in the government of Missouri claimed that there was no warrant of authority under the laws and constitution of the state for calling out a permanent military force to protect the Saints in the peaceful possession of their homes until the civil authority proved itself competent to keep the peace and protect the citizens in the enjoyment of their guaranteed rights; but the people in the western part of Missouri saw the time come when they themselves prayed for the same protection; and Governor Stewart, unlike Governor Dunklin, approved the appointment of a battalion of volunteers consisting of three companies of rangers and one of artillery, all of which were placed under command of Lieutenant-Colonel John L. Bowen, to do the very thing the Saints had prayed might be done in their case.^[68] But even this provision for their protection did not avail; for their old jayhawking enemies soon reappeared under new conditions—which will be stated in the next paragraph—under which they renewed their incursions of rapine and murder.

The state authorities of Missouri converted the mobs which had plundered the Saints, burned their homes and laid waste their lands, into the state militia, which gave the former mob a legal status, under which guise they plundered the Saints, compelled them to sign away their property and agree to leave the state. To resist this mob-militia was to be guilty of treason; but the people of western Missouri lived to see a like policy pursued towards them. They suffered much in Jackson and other western counties in the border war, previous to the opening of the Civil War, from the inroads of abolition "jayhawkers" in the interest of anti-slavery. For a time this was in part suppressed by the state militia under General Frost and by the permanent force stationed on the border under Lieutenant-Colonel Bowen. But later, and when the Civil War broke out, these old "jayhawking" leaders "now came with United States commissions in their pockets, and at the head of regularly enlisted troops, in which guise they carried on a system of robbery and murder that left a good portion of the frontier south of the Missouri river as perfect a waste as Germany was at the end of the Thirty Years' War."^[69]

Such wretches as Generals Lane and Jennison, though Union officers, and denounced alike by Governor Robinson of Kansas—of course a strong Union man—and General Halleck,^[70] commander-in-chief of the western armies of the Union, were permitted to disgrace alike the Union cause and our human nature by their unspeakable atrocities. But they were retained in office, nevertheless. It was the outrages committed by these men and their commands, and the Kansas "Red Legs" that led to the equally savage reprisals on the people of Kansas. In revenge for what western Missouri had suffered, outlawed Missourians sacked Lawrence, Kansas, a Union city, massacred one hundred and eighty-three of its inhabitants, and left it in flames. In justification of their act of savagery, they declared: "Jennison has laid waste our homes, and the 'Red Legs' have perpetrated unheard of crimes. Houses have been plundered and burned, defenseless men shot down, and women outraged. We are here for revenge—and we have got it."^[71] How nearly this language of the Missourians—and there can be no question that it describes what had been done in Missouri by Lane, Jennison, and their commands, and the Kansas "Red Legs"^[72]—follows the complaint justly made by the Latter-day Saints years before against the Missourians! But thank God, there is recorded against the Saints no such horrible deeds of reprisal.

The Missourians falsely charged that the Saints held illicit communication with the Indian tribes then assembled near the frontiers of the state, and pretended to an alarm that their state might be invaded by the savages, prompted thereto by "Mormon" fanaticism; but these same Missourians lived to see cause for real fear of such an invasion when the Governor of an adjoining state—Arkansas—authorize Brigadier General Albert Pike to raise two mounted regiments of Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians to actually invade the state. These regiments of savages were engaged in the battle of Pea Ridge, on the southwest borders of Missouri. General Pike, who led them in that battle, dressed himself in gaudy, savage costume, and wore a large plume on his head—a la Niel Gilliam at Far West—to please the Indians. It is also charged that before the battle of Pea Ridge, he maddened his Indians with liquor "that they might allow the savage nature of their race to have unchecked development. In their fury they respected none of the usages of civilized warfare, but scalped the helpless wounded, and committed atrocities too horrible to mention."^[73] The "fear" expressed by the Missourians respecting the alleged illicit communication of the Saints with the Indians was mere feigning, but with this example before them, and knowing that there were many thousands of Indians on their frontiers that might be similarly induced to take up arms, their former feigned fears became real ones.

The Missourians instead of demanding the execution of the law in support of the liberties of the Saints, expressed the fear that the presence of the Saints would give rise to "Civil War," in which none could be neutrals, since their homes must be the theatre on which it would be fought,^[74] so they drove the Saints away; but the Missourians lived to see the outbreak of a civil war in their state that was one of the most appalling men ever witnessed; and Missouri, when all things are considered, and especially western Missouri, suffered more than any other state of the Union. In other states the war lasted at most but four years; but counting her western border warfare in the struggle for Kansas, the war was waged in western Missouri from 1855 to 1865, ten years: and for many years after the close of the Civil War, a guerrilla warfare was intermittently carried on by bands of outlaws harbored in western Missouri—especially in Jackson, Ray, Caldwell and Clay counties—that terrorized the community and shocked the world by the daring and atrocity of their crimes—including bank robberies in open day, express train wrecking and robberies, and murders. Not until 1881 was this effectually stopped by the betrayal and murder of the outlaw chief of these bands.

Missouri sent into the Union Armies one hundred and nine thousand of her sons, including eight thousand negroes. About thirty thousand enlisted in the confederate army. According to official reports the percentage of troops to population in the western states and territories was 13.6 per cent, and in the New England states 12 per cent; whilst in Missouri, if there be added to her quota sent to the northern army the thirty thousand sent to the confederate army, her percentage was fourteen per cent, or sixty per cent of those who were subject to military duty. Of the deaths among these enlisted men, only approximate estimates may be made, since of the mortality among the Confederates no official records were kept. But of those who entered the Union service, thirteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-five deaths are officially reported. The rate of mortality in the Confederate forces, owing to the greater hardships they endured, and the lack of medical attendants to care for the wounded, was much higher, and is generally estimated at twelve thousand, (most of whom were from western Missouri), which added to the deaths of those in the Union army would aggregate the loss among the troops from Missouri to twenty-five thousand eight hundred and eighty-five. "This estimate," says Lucien Carr, "does not cover those who were killed in the skirmishes that took place between the home guards and the guerrillas; nor does it include those who were not in either army, but who were shot down by "bushwhackers" and "bushwhacking" Federal soldiers. Of these latter there is no record, though there were but few sections of the state in which such scenes were not more or less frequent. Assuming the deaths from these two sources to have been 1,200, and summing up the results, it will be found that the number of Missourians who were killed in the war and died from disease during their term of service amounted to not less than 27,000 men."^[75]

The loss in treasure was in full proportion to the loss in blood. The state expended $7,000,000 in fitting out and maintaining her Union troops in the field.^[76] She lost $40,000,000 in slave property; and four years after the close of the war—two of which, 1867-8, were remarkably prosperous—the taxable wealth of the state was $46,000,000 less than it was in 1860. "In many portions of the state," says the historian to whom I am indebted for so many of the facts relating to Missouri in these pages, "especially in the southern and western borders, whole counties had been devastated. The houses were burned, the fences destroyed, and the farms laid waste. Much of the live stock of the state had disappeared; and everywhere, even in those sections that were comparatively quiet and peaceful, the quantity of land in cultivation was much less than it had been at the outbreak of the war. Added to these sources of decline, and in some measure a cause of them, was the considerable emigration from the state which now took place, and particularly from those regions that lay in the pathway of the armies, or from those neighborhoods that were given over to the "bushwhackers." The amount of loss from these different sources cannot be accurately gauged, but some idea may be formed of it, and of the unsettled condition of affairs, from the fact that only 41 out of the 113 counties in the state receipted for the tax books for 1861; and in these counties, only $250,000 out of the $600,000 charged against them were collected."^[77]

This only in a general way indicates the losses in property sustained by the state during the period under consideration, but it assists one to understand somewhat the enormity of those losses.

It is in no spirit of gloating exultation that these facts in Missouri's history are referred to here. It gives no gratification to the writer to recount the woes of Missouri, and his hope is that it will give none to the reader. These facts of history are set down only because they are valuable for the lesson they teach. It may be that visible retribution does not always follow in the wake of state or national wrong-doing; but it is well that it should sometimes do so, lest men should come to think that Eternal Justice sleeps, or may be thwarted, or, what would be worst of all, that she does not exist. I say it is well, therefore, that sometimes visible retribution should follow state and national as well as individual transgressions, that the truth of the great principle that "as men sow, so shall they reap," may be vindicated. Missouri in her treatment of the Latter-day Saints during the years 1833-9, sowed the wind; in the disastrous events which overtook her during the years 1855-65, she reaped the whirlwind. Let us hope that in those events Justice was fully vindicated so far as the state of Missouri is concerned; and that the lessons of her sad experience may not be lost to the world. May the awful and visible retribution visited upon Missouri teach all states and nations that when they feel power they must not forget Justice; may it teach all peoples that states and nations in their corporate capacity are such entities as may be held accountable before God and the world for their actions; that righteousness exalteth a nation, while injustice is a reproach to any people. May the retribution that was so palpably visited upon the state of Missouri satisfy and encourage the Latter-day Saints; not that I would see them rejoice in the suffering of the wicked; but rejoice rather in the evidence that Justice slumbereth not; that their wrongs are not hidden from the All-seeing eye of God; that they are within the circle of His love; that they cannot be unjustly assailed with impunity, however humble and weak they may be. From all these considerations may they be established in peace, hope, confidence and charity; knowing that God is their friend; that His arm is strong to protect; or, if in the course of God's economy in the management of the affairs of the world it must needs be that for a time they suffer at the hands of oppressors, that He will avenge them of their enemies; and amply reward them for their sufferings in His cause.

Footnotes.

1. See "American Commonwealths," Missouri, (Houghton, Mifflin & company, 1888), p. 181.

2. "History of the United States," (Morris) p. 132.

3. Ibid, pp. 135-7

4. History of the Church, Vol. II, p. 450.

5. Mr. Tallmadge, a representative from the state of New York, offered the restricting provision.

6. History of the Church, vol. 1, p. 374, et seq.

7. In making the statement that it was the intention of the Star article not only to stop "free people of color" immigrating to Missouri, but also to "prevent them from being admitted as members of the church," the editor of the Star, of course went too far; if not in his second article, explaining the scope and meaning of the first, then in the first article; for he had no authority to seek to prevent "free people of color" from being admitted members of the Church. But as a matter of fact there were very few if any "free people of color" in the Church at that time. The "fears" of the Missourians on that head were sheer fabrications of evil disposed minds.

8. Western Monitor for the 2nd of August, 1833.

9. Joseph Smith's "Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States," Mill Star, Vol. XXII. p. 743.

10. The speech appears in the Missouri Republican of June 18th, 1857.

11. Pearl of Great Price, pp. 44, 45, 1902 edition.

12. Doc. & Cov. Sec. 38.

13. Doc. & Cov. Sec. 45.

14. Doc. & Cov. Sec. 58.

15. Doc. and Cov., Sec. 58, verses 52-3

16. Doc. and Cov., Sec. 63, verses 25-31.

17. Doc. and Cov., Sec. 64, verses 34-36.

18. Doc. and Cov., sec. 68, verses 29-34.

19. See "History of the Church," Vol. I, ch. 19.

20. Including of course, and I may say especially including, the commandment to purchase the lands of Jackson county.

21. Doc. and Cov., sec. 84, verses 54-59.

22. History of the Church, Vol. I p. 316.

23. Ibid, pp. 317-21.

24. Doc. and Cov., sec.101, verses 1-9.

25. Ibid, verse 75.

26. Ibid, sec. 103.

27. First Manifesto of Mob, History of the Church, Vol. 1, p. 374.

28. History of the Church, Vol. I. p. 396.

29. Doc. and Cov., sec. 83.

30. Doc. and Cov., sec. 63.

31. Doc. and Cov., sec. 63: 29-31.

32. Evening and Morning Star, p. 220.

33. "History of the Church," Vol. I, p. 396.

34. These estimates are by the late President George A. Smith, Church Historian, and hence are entirely reliable. They are quoted by Lucien Carr in his History of Missouri, "American Commonwealths," p. 181, and are also to be found in an Historical Address by George A. Smith, Journal of Discourses, Vol. XIII, pp. 103, et seq.

35. "History of Caldwell county" (National Historical Company, 1886) p. 121.

36. "In the fall of 1836, a large and comfortable schoolhouse was built and here courts were held after the location of the county seat until its removal to Kingston. The Mormons very early gave attention to educational matters. There were many teachers among them and schoolhouses and were among their first buildings. The schoolhouse in Far West was used as a Church, as a town hall and as a court house, as well as for a schoolhouse. It first stood in the southwest quarter of town, but upon the establishment of the county seat it was removed to the center of the square," ("History of Caldwell County," p. 121.—National Historical Company, 1886).

37. "History of the Church," Vol., I, pp. 375-6.

38. "History of the Church," Vol. I, p. 397.

39. "History of the Church," Vol. II, p. 85.

40. "History of the Church," Vol. II p. 450.

41. "History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties," compiled by the St. Louis National and Historical Company, 1886, p. 140.

42. Daniel 2:44

43. Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, p. 230, also History of the Church, Vol. III p. 212.

44. "Decline and Fall o the Roman Empire," Vol. I, Chapter II.

45. "This is Chapter XVI of the "Decline and Fall."

46. Tacitus Annal., lib. XV, ch. 44.

47. "Decline and Fall," Vol. I, ch. 15.

48. "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," ch. 16.

49. Isaiah 14:12-15. Doc. and Cov., sec. 76: 25-9.

50. See Luke 10:17, 18. John 8:44, Rev. 12. In the light of these references consider also Isaiah 14:12-5, and Doc. and Cov. section 76:25-9.

51. Pearl of Great Price, chapter 4:1-4.

52. Luke 10:18.

53. Jude 1:6.

54. Rev:7-12.

55. First Amendment, Constitution of the United States.

56. "The Fight for Missouri," (Snead) p. 14.

57. "American Commonwealths, Missouri," p. 258.

58. "American Commonwealths, Missouri," p. 259.

59. "American Commonwealths, Missouri," (Carr) p. 288.

60. "American Commonwealths, Missouri," p. 342.

61. History of Missouri, Carr, p. 360. General Price was the Colonel Sterling Price, who held the Prophet Joseph in custody at Richmond in 1838, who shackled the brethren and whose scurrilous guards were so severely rebuked by the Prophet.—History of the Church, Vol. III, p. 208, Note.

62. "History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties." p. 51.

63. "American Commonwealths, Missouri." p. 351.

64. Ibid. p. 351.

65. Minutes of Citizen Meeting, Liberty, Clay county, Church History Vol. III, p. 450.

66. History of Missouri, Carr, p. 343, Note.

67. History of Missouri, Carr, 245.

68. History of Missouri, Carr, p. 158.

69. History of Missouri, Carr, p. 259.

70. General Halleck when he learned that the "jayhawking" leader, Lane, had been promoted to the command of a bridge, declared that such an appointment was "offering a premium for rascality and robbing generally;" and that it would "take twenty thousand men to counteract its effect in the state." History of Missouri, Carr, p. 348.

71. Spring's Kansas, p. 287.

72. These were bands of Kansas robbers, whose custom it was at intervals to dash into Missouri, seize horses and cattle—not omitting other and worse crimes on occasion—then to repair with their booty to Lawrence, where it was defiantly sold at auction." History of Missouri, Carr, p. 348.

73. History of the United States, Lossing, p. 592—note.

74. History of the Church, Vol. II, p. 450-1.

75. History of Missouri, Carr, p. 358.

76. It is but proper, however, to say that the state was afterwards reimbursed for this amount by the general government.

77. History of Missouri, Carr, p. 359.