Docket Entry, 1–circa 6 July 1843 [Extradition of JS for Treason]
Source Note
Docket Entry, [, Hancock Co., IL, 1–ca. 6 July 1843], Extradition of JS for Treason (Nauvoo, IL, Municipal Court 1843); Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book, 55–87, 116–150; handwriting of and ; CHL.
hereafter become acquainted with the particulars thereof— will know, that & Generals , & W also have committed treason upon the citizens of & did violate the Constitution of the & also the Constitution & laws of the State of and did exile & expel at the point of the bayonet, some twelve or fourteen thousand inhabitants from the & did murder some three or four hundreds of men women & children in cold blood & in the most horrid & cruel manner possible and the whole of it was caused by religious bigotry & persecution, because the Mormons dared to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences & according agreeably to His divine will, as revealed in the Scriptures of eternal truth & had turned away from following the vain traditions of their fathers & would not worship according to the dogmas & commandments of those men who preach for hire & divine for money & teach for doctrine the commandments <precepts> of men, expecting that the constitution of the would have protected them thereein. But notwithstanding the mormon people had purchased upwards of two hundred thousand dollars worth of land, most of which was entered & paid for at the land office of the in the State of and although the of the has been made acquainted with these facts & the particulars of our persecutions & oppressions, by petition to him, & to Congress, yet they have not even attempted to restore the Mormons to their rights or any assurance that we may hereafter expect redress from them. And I do also know most possitively and assuredly that my brother Joseph Smith, Senior, has not been in the State of since the Spring of the year 1839. And further this saith not
sworn. Says that he fully concurs in the testimony of the preceding , so far as he is acquainted with the same & that Joseph Smith has not been known as Joseph Smith, Junior for the time stated by , (during the persecutions of our people in ). He was an eye witness of most of the Scenes testified to by said during the persecutions of our people in . That during the latter part of Summer & fall in the year 1838 there were large bodies of the mob assembled in various places, for the avowed object of killing, driving, robbing, plundering & exterminating the Mormons & actually committed many murders & other depredations as related by the preceding . The was <frequently> petitioned as also the other [p. 79]