Marks had heard rumors that he was the “doe head [doughhead]” or “Brutus” to whom JS referred in a 29 December 1843 speech and that his life was in danger. In their investigation of the matter, the city council determined that Marks got his information from Leonard Soby and that Soby, in turn, got his information from Warren Smith. Smith remembered identifying William Law, not Marks, as the traitor, though Smith admitted that his opinion had been “founded on rumor.” Several other men testified as well, including thirty policemen who swore that JS “had never given them any private instruction concerning the case.” JS denied any intention of “doing anything against the peace of the Inhabitants of this city” and expressed surprise that Law, Marks, “or any other man should entertain such an idea.” In his record of the meeting, Law reported saying that “Joseph had nothing to fear from me, I was not his enemy,” but he also noted parenthetically, “I did not say I was his friend.” The meeting ended with the council reviewing the duties of the policemen and thanking them for their service. (JS, Journal, 29 Dec. 1843 and 4 Jan. 1844; Nauvoo City Council Rough Minute Book, 29 Dec. 1843, 30–32; 5 Jan. 1844, 36–40; JS History, vol. E-1, 1853–1857; Law, Record of Doings, 5 Jan. 1844, in Cook, William Law, 45.)

Cook, Lyndon W. William Law: Biographical Essay, Nauvoo Diary, Correspondence, Interview. Orem, UT: Grandin Book, 1994.

JS’s letter to Calhoun, dated 2 January 1844, responded to a letter Calhoun had sent JS telling him that if elected president of the United States, he would treat all citizens the same, regardless of their religious views, and that he did not feel the Saints’ claims against Missouri could be satisfied through an appeal to the federal government. In his response, JS argued that the federal government did have jurisdiction regarding the church members’ claims against the state of Missouri: “Congress has power to protect the nation against foreign invasion and internal broil,” he wrote, “and whenever that body passes an act to maintain right with any power: or to restore right to any portion of her Citizens, it is the Supreme law of the Land and should a State refuse submission, that State is guilty of insurrection or rebellion, and the president has as much power to repel it as Washington had to march against the ‘Whiskey Boys of Pittsburg,’ or General Jackson had to send an armed force to suppress the rebellion of South Carolina!” JS also declared to Calhoun that he would continue petitioning judges and political authorities for redress and that if the Latter-day Saints were not reimbursed for their losses in Missouri, “God will come out of his hiding place and vex this nation with a sore vexation— yea, the consuming wrath of an offended God shall smoke through the nation, with as much distress and woe, as Independence has blazed through with pleasure and delight.” (JS, Nauvoo, IL, to John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, SC, 2 Jan. 1844, JS Collection, CHL, underlining in original; John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill, SC, to JS, Nauvoo, IL, 2 Dec. 1843, JS Collection, CHL; “Correspondence of Gen. Joseph Smith and Hon. J. C. Calhoun,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 10 Jan. 1844, [2]–[3]; see also JS, Journal, 4 Nov. and 27 Dec. 1843.)

Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.