Letter to Editor, 17 July 1843, as Published in Nauvoo Neighbor
Source Note
[, (Viator, pseud.)], Letter, , Hancock Co., IL, to the Editor of Boston Daily Bee, , Suffolk Co., MA, 17 July 1843. Version published in Nauvoo Neighbor, 30 Aug. 1843, vol. 1, no. 18, [2]–[3].
plied—‘It takes two to make a bargain.’ So if the legislature should repeal or alter the charter of , without the consent of the citizens, they have only to put a quietus on the act, through the Supreme Court of the ; as many other cases have been according to her Reports.
Reserved rights and vested rights are very different, and had the legislature reserved any important point in the charter, and the city council used it, without the consent mutually of both parties, they would have been held ameanable to the supreme court for the usurpation of that power. But when the ‘benefit and convenience’ of demands ordinances no broader than the constitution of the and that of justifies, no matter whether there is any law on the subject or not, the city council has only to show their wisdom by their ordinances, and their power by their virtues, and how beautifully the world will behold emperium in imperio.
Recenty there has been much said about the powers of the Municipal Court of said ; because that court had the right to issue writs of under their own ordinances. Any man that objects to this power of the municipal court, is ignorant of the vested rights of the constitution of the , for ‘the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless, when in cases of rebellion and invasion, the public safety may require it.’ The highest objection is, that the writ according to the charter, must be confined to cases arising from the ordinances. Just so. If the writ was not issued upon the direction and rules of ordinances, what would govern it? Do the circuit and supreme courts of the issue writs of habeas corpus on the laws of the state, or upon the laws of Spain, Portugal, or the ?— Does the supreme court of the exercise the right of habeas corpus upon the , or upon an Ukase of the Emperor Nicholas, of Russia.
Again the municipal court of consists of several persons, whereas the circuit court is one man only; and the world has yet to learn that a ‘little brief authority,’ is as judiciously exercised by one man as by six—why, the good old Law Book says ‘in the midst of counsellors there is safety.’
, of late, made a most desperate and illegal attempt to force the Mormon prophet into her bosom, but met with a most sublime failure. After having been once thrust from her warm embrace by pointed steel and burning sulphur, he seems not anxious to throw himself again upon their renewed offers of hospitality and ‘pretended justice,’ yet Gen. Smith treated the agent of the state of with all due respect; introducing him to his family, and seating him at the head of his table. All is quiet at .