Petition to United States Congress, 29 November 1839

of building homes for themselves & posterity.  and of erecting temples where they & theirs  might worship their Creator according  to the dictates of their conscience. Through  they had wandered far from the homes  of their childhood, still they had been taught  to believe <by>, that a Citizen of <born in any> one state, in this  great Republic

North American constitutional republic. Constitution ratified, 17 Sept. 1787. Population in 1805 about 6,000,000; in 1830 about 13,000,000; and in 1844 about 20,000,000. Louisiana Purchase, 1803, doubled size of U.S. Consisted of seventeen states at time ...

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, might remove to another  and enjoy all the rights & immunities  of Citizens of the State of his adoption,  That wherever waved the American flag.  beneath its stars and stripes an American  Citizen might look for protection, <&> justice  and <for> liberty in person and in conscience.  They bought farms, built houses erected  churches, some tilled the earth, others bought  and sold merchandize, and others again  toiled in the shop of the mechanic, They  were industrious and moral & they prospered  and though often persecuted and villified  for their difference in religious opinion  from their fellow Citizens, they were hope <happy>,  They saw their society increasing in numbers  their farms teemed with plenty, and they fondly  looked forward to a future big wiht  hope That there was prejudice against  them <they> knew, that slanders were propagated  against them they deplored, yet they felt [p. 2]