The Rocky Mountain Saints/Chapter 20

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The abandonment of Missouri shook the faith of many of the disciples, but the majority were unchanged—

The Missourians had been victorious they knew, but what Joseph had said about the coming glories of Zion, the New Jerusalem, and the Temple in Jackson county, was, they nevertheless believed, true and from heaven. All would yet be right.

Of those who abandoned the faith, some remained in Missouri, and others returned to their former homes in the eastern States; and, in the language of an ancient record, "even unto this day" they may be found—half Mormon and half nothing else—scattered throughout Ohio, New York, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and most of the New England States.

Early in the spring the citizens of Quincy saw a large increase to their numbers of poor, destitute Mormons. They were utterly helpless, and many of them bordering on starvation. Meetings were called and measures adopted for their particular benefit. At the same time, the ignorant were assured that the Mormons had no design of lowering the prices of labour, but were only seeking "to procure something to save them from starving," and that they were, "by every law of humanity, entitled to sympathy and commiseration." Those were humble days; but they were soon to change.

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​Joseph himself, like the Angel of Deliverance, came bounding into their midst. The gloom of death that so darkly overhung their horizon vanished before the beams of the Prophet's rising sun. His chief advisers had already received and debated the offers of sections of land; it was now for him, with the guidance of Heaven, to decide.

The east bank of the Mississippi, forty miles above Quincy and twenty miles southwest of Burlington, Iowa, was the favoured spot. Here on a bend of the river, upon rising ground that commanded a magnificent view of the winding Mississippi for many miles, was to be the new home of the Saints. A group of huts and houses called Commerce was the place selected; but the name was an every-day word. The "Reformed Egyptian" of the Book of Mormon supplied a better name—"Nauvoo"—the beautiful. By revelation the scattered Saints from Missouri and from all parts of the earth were now commanded to gather to this new Zion.

The apostle Parley P. Pratt, and the other leading elders who had been imprisoned in Missouri, after great suffering and privations, also made their escape and reached Illinois. They laid the foundation of new homes at Nauvoo, but "the Lord " deemed it prudent that they should not remain in the United States, and in August and September the principal apostles and elders were appointed missions to England. Among these were Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, and George A. Smith. Heber C. Kimball, who had already been to that country, returned in company with Brigham Young.

Nauvoo soon became an important city. The foundation of the first house was laid in 1839, and in less than two years over two thousand dwellings were erected, besides schoolhouses and public edifices. The foundation of the Temple was laid, and scores of mechanics and labourers were engaged on "the House of the Lord." Everything was going smoothly.

In the mean time, a statement of the losses of the Saints in Missouri was carefully prepared, and in October, Joseph, Sidney Rigdon, and Judge Elias Higbee visited Washington to petition Congress in their behalf, and to seek redress.

President Martin Van Buren received the petitioners courteously, and listened patiently to them; but the sovereignty ​of the States was then in the fulness of its glory, and the Chief Executive of the Republic replied: "Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you."

The petitioners thoroughly understood the President—the support of Missouri could not be risked. The reply of "Matty," as Joseph ever afterwards contemptuously styled President Van Buren, will never be forgotten by the Mormons. It has served as the text for thousands of sermons at home and abroad on "the Persecutions of the Saints," and it is to be found in nearly every declaration of grievance against the Government.

In a statement of their sufferings, published by Orson Pratt, Washington, January, 1854, reference is thus made to that circumstance:

"After fifteen thousand American citizens had been driven from the State of Missouri under the exterminating orders of Governor Boggs, having previously applied to the judicial and legislative authority of that State in vain, they sent their delegates with a memorial to the President and to Congress, who had the unblushing impudence to refer them for redress to the very State whose Governor had driven them from her borders, and whose Legislature had voted two hundred thousand dollars to pay her troops for their bloodthirsty and unconstitutional acts. Yes, they were told to go and seek redress from their murderers, and from the murderers of their wives and children."^[1]

At this time Sidney Rigdon, as a native of Pennsylvania, addressed a memorial to the Senate and House of Representatives of that State, setting forth what he and his co-religionists had suffered, and as the authorities of Missouri had refused him redress, he asked that "the whole delegation of Pennsylvania, in both houses, be instructed to use all their influence in the national councils to have redress granted." Nothing advantageous to the exiles was ever heard from either the memorial to Congress or that to the Legislature of the "Keystone State." By revelation, Joseph had been instructed to "seek redress from the least in authority even to the greatest." In Missouri they began their petitions with the Justice of the Peace, and then ascended in regular gradation till they reached the Chief Executive of the State. They had finished their task for the time being, when they had memoralized Congress ​and laid their petition before the President of the United States. By their perseverance, and the official negative response that they everywhere received, it is understood by the Mormons that the whole national authority is culpable in the sight of Heaven, as participators in shedding the blood of the Saints in Missouri. This is the key to the bitterness of sentiment that may be heard in the Mormon Tabernacle, or read in the Mormon press, and the nation may be assured of this, that there never will be an end to it while Mormonism exists.^[2] The claim to their lands in Jackson county will never be abandoned, nor will the Government be forgiven till the Mormons are restored to their "inheritances" in Missouri. They will never be silent, and when they reach the halls of Congress their senators and their representatives will be heard for ever demanding redress and restoration. It cannot be denied that there is justice in their claim.

Satisfied that compensation for the past was not to be hoped for at the seat of government, the Prophet and his friends returned to Nauvoo. Protection for the future was only to be found in their own ability to cope with their enemies, and with that conclusion they set themselves to work to provide for contingencies.