In the Quaker tradition, a man and woman married by reciting oaths to each other before the monthly meeting without the aid of a minister or civil authority; after this, the attendees at the meeting signed the marriage certificate. Brigham Young commented on this practice at the 11 March council meeting. (Discipline of the Society of Friends, of Ohio Yearly Meeting, 42–46; Hamm, Quakers in America, 195; Council of Fifty, “Record,” 11 Mar. 1845.)

The Discipline of the Society of Friends, of Ohio Yearly Meeting; Printed by Direction of the Meeting, Held at Mountpleasant, Ohio, in the Year 1819. Mount Pleasant, OH: Enoch Harris Jr., 1839.

Hamm, Thomas D. The Quakers in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

According to John Taylor’s journal, when Sheriff Miner R. Deming arrived in Nauvoo on 12 March 1845 and informed Taylor that Constable David Bettisworth from Carthage had a writ to arrest him, Taylor warned that he and other Mormons would forcibly resist any attempt to serve a writ. He stated, “If any man comes to me with a writ of that kind, and does not immediately depart; he or I have to bite the dust.” Taylor, who was shot four times during the June 1844 attack that killed JS, wrote that the Mormons had been “oppressed all the day long; we have been stript of every constitutional right; our best men have been shot down in a manner that would have disgraced the most degenerate barbarians, I myself had my blood spilt on that occassion; and I am not willing to submit any longer to such devilish proceedings.” (Taylor, Journal, [Mar. 1845], 45–46; Clayton, Journal, 12 Mar. 1845.)

Taylor, John. Journal, Dec. 1844–Sept. 1845. CHL.

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

On 1 February 1845 church leaders wrote letters to nationally prominent lawyers and politicians, including John C. Spencer, who had served as secretary of war and secretary of the treasury under President John Tyler, seeking advice on the repeal of the Nauvoo charter by the Illinois legislature. In his response, which was received on 17 March, Spencer declined to offer advice until he knew “more about the facts” and received a “fee commensurate with the case.” (John C. Spencer, Albany, NY, to Brigham Young et al., Nauvoo, IL, 27 Feb. 1845, Brigham Young Office Files, CHL; George A. Smith, Autobiography, 17 Mar. 1845, 49.)

Brigham Young Office Files, 1832–1878. CHL. CR 1234 1.

Smith, George Albert, Autobiography / “History of George Albert Smith by Himself,” ca. 1857–1875. Draft. George Albert Smith, Papers, 1834–1877. CHL.