Footnotes
JS, Sidney Rigdon, and Elias Higbee, “Petition to United States Congress for Redress,” ca. 29 Nov. 1839, JS Collection, CHL; Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840; see also the affidavits contained in Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, National Archives, Washington DC.
Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives / Petitions and Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures, and Related Documents Which Were Referred to the Committee on Judiciary during the 27th Congress. Committee on the Judiciary, Petitions and Memorials, 1813–1968. Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789–2015. National Archives, Washington DC. The LDS records cited herein are housed in National Archives boxes 40 and 41 of Library of Congress boxes 139–144 in HR27A-G10.1.
Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 17, 19.
Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.
JS and Elias Higbee, Washington DC, to Seymour Brunson, 7 Dec. 1839, copy, JS Collection, CHL.
Reynolds served as governor of Illinois from 1830 to 1834. (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1800.)
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–2005, the Continental Congress, September 5, 1774, to October 21, 1788, and the Congress of the United States, from the First through the One Hundred Eighth Congresses, March 4, 1789, to January 3, 2005, inclusive. Edited by Andrew R. Dodge and Betty K. Koed. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005.
Robinson was a United States senator from Carmi, Illinois, and a Democrat. His statement to JS and Higbee as recorded in this letter, combined with his close political alliance to Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, suggests he was a strong proponent of states’ rights over federal power, a position then at the heart of Democratic Party politics and at odds with the church delegation’s method for seeking redress. (Berry, “Forgotten Statesmen of Illinois: Hon. John M. Robinson,” 77–78.)
Berry, Daniel. “Forgotten Statesmen of Illinois: Hon. John M. Robinson.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 7, no. 1 (Apr. 1914): 77–81.
The church had previously made several appeals for redress to the Missouri courts. In 1834, for example, about a dozen church members were marched to Jackson County, Missouri, under the guard of the state militia in order to testify before a grand jury, but they were informed by the attorney general that the prejudice against the church was too strong in that county for them to receive a fair hearing. (See, for example, the records related to the suits of Partridge v. Lucas et al., Phelps v. Simpson et al., and Allen v. David et al. housed at Jackson County Records Center, Independence, MO; Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839; and Letter from William W. Phelps, 27 Feb. 1834.)
The Saints had requested aid from two different Missouri governors: Daniel Dunklin and Lilburn W. Boggs. (“To His Excellency, Daniel Dunklin,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Dec. 1833, 114–115; Benjamin Kendrick et al., De Witt, MO, to Lilburn W. Boggs, Petition, 22 Sept. 1838, copy, Mormon War Papers, Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City.)
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
Mormon War Papers, 1838–1841. MSA.