White served as a United States senator from Tennessee from 1825 to 1840. He had previously served on the Tennessee Supreme Court, and he ran for president in 1836 as a Whig, finishing third behind Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison. (McBride and Robison, Biographical Directory of the Tennessee General Assembly, 776–778.)

McBride, Robert M., and Dan M. Robison. Biographical Directory of the Tennessee General Assembly. 6 vols. Nashville, TN: Tennessee State Library and Archives and the Tennessee Historical Commission, 1975.

Likely Silas Wright Jr. (Democrat), a lawyer and senator from New York. (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 120, 2204.)

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.

In Thompson’s copy of the letter, this parenthetical statement reads: “which our representative Mr Steward promised to do.” “Mr. Steward” is a reference to Representative John Todd Stuart of Illinois. (JS and Elias Higbee, Washington DC, to Seymour Brunson, 7 Dec. 1839, copy, JS Collection, CHL; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1995.)

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.

Before arriving in the capital, the church’s delegation to the federal government had started drafting a memorial to Congress and gathering affidavits from church members that itemized property lost or damaged in Missouri. The delegation hoped the government would print and distribute the memorial with these affidavits. (Historical Introduction to Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840; Letter from Elias Higbee, 24 Mar. 1840.)

Preemption rights were a contractual agreement to purchase a tract of public land before it became available for purchase by a person or an entity. The holder of the preemption rights to a piece of property effectively had the first option to buy the property. Because the conflict in Missouri occurred right before the land became available for sale, church members claimed that their attackers sought to take away the Saints’ preemption rights for their own economic advantage. (Affidavit, 20 Jan. 1840; Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840; see also Walker, “Mormon Land Rights,” 4–55.)

Walker, Jeffrey N. “Mormon Land Rights in Caldwell and Daviess Counties and the Mormon Conflict of 1838: New Findings and New Understandings.” BYU Studies 47, no. 1 (2008): 4–55.

The Third Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits the quartering of soldiers “in any house, without the consent of the Owner.”

As a member of the committee formed in January 1839 to assist poor church members leaving Missouri, Ripley would have been familiar with the specific details surrounding the expulsion of individual church members and the fate of the property they left behind. (“Proceedings of Meeting No 2 Jany 29th 1839,” Far West Committee, Minutes, CHL; see also Dimick B. Huntington, Reminiscences and Journal, 8.)

Far West Committee. Minutes, Jan.–Apr. 1839. CHL. MS 2564.

Huntington, Dimick B. Reminiscences and Journal, 1845–1847. Dimick B. Huntington, Journal, 1845–1859. CHL. MS 1419, fd. 1.

Article 1, section 9, of the United States Constitution states: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” JS and five others were incarcerated at Liberty, Missouri, from 1 December 1838 to 6 April 1839. They appealed to both a county court and the Missouri Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, but both courts denied their appeals. (Jessee, “‘Walls, Grates, and Screeking Iron Doors’: The Prison Experience of Mormon Leaders in Missouri,” 19–42; Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839.)

Jessee, Dean C. “‘Walls, Grates and Screeking Iron Doors’: The Prison Experiences of Mormon Leaders in Missouri, 1838–1839.” In New Views of Mormon History: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Leonard J. Arrington, edited by Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, 19–42. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987.

In preparation for the church’s appeal to the federal government, Higbee certified dozens of affidavits in his official capacity as a justice of the peace. This may have been the same type of legal care JS and Higbee were urging the high council to take as they continued to build a case against Missouri. Dozens of affidavits regarding lost and damaged property in Missouri were submitted to Congress by JS, Rigdon, and Higbee and by later church delegations sent to the federal government. It is unclear, however, which of these were submitted by the 1839–1840 delegation and which ones were submitted later.

The delay in electing a Speaker and a clerk in the House of Representatives was due to contested elections in New Jersey.