Footnotes
Whiting, “Paper Making in New England,” 309; Gravell et al., American Watermarks, 235.
Whiting, William. “Paper-Making in New England.” In The New England States: Their Constitutional, Judicial, Educational, Commercial, Professional and Industrial History, edited by William T. Davis, vol. 1, pp. 303–333. Boston: D. H. Hurd, 1897.
“An Act to Repeal the Nauvoo Charter,” 14th General Assembly, 1844–1845, Senate Bill no. 35 (House Bill no. 42), Illinois General Assembly, Enrolled Acts of the General Assembly, 1818–2012, Illinois State Archives, Springfield.
Illinois General Assembly. Bills, Resolutions, and Related General Assembly Records, 1st–98th Bienniums, 1819–2015. Illinois State Archives, Springfield.
“Schedule of Church Records. Nauvoo 1846,” [1], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Illinois General Assembly. Bills, Resolutions, and Related General Assembly Records, 1st–98th Bienniums, 1819–2015. Illinois State Archives, Springfield.
“Inventory. Historian’s Office. 4th April 1855,” [1]–[2]; “Index of Records and Journals in the Historian’s Office 1878,” [11]; “Index to Papers in the Historians Office,” ca. 1904, 7, Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Illinois General Assembly. Bills, Resolutions, and Related General Assembly Records, 1st–98th Bienniums, 1819–2015. Illinois State Archives, Springfield.
See the full bibliographic entry for Nauvoo, IL, Records, 1841–1845, in the CHL catalog.
Footnotes
Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries, 1:290–291; U.S. Constitution, art. 1, sec. 9; Illinois Constitution of 1818, art. 8, sec. 13.
Tucker, St. George. Blackstone's Commentaries: With Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States; and of the Commonwealth of Virginia. 5 vols. Philadelphia: William Young Birch and Abraham Small, 1803.
An Act Regulating the Proceeding on Writs of Habeas Corpus [22 Jan. 1827], Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois, p. 322, sec. 1, italics in original.
The Public and General Statutes Passed by the Congress of the United States of America. From 1789 to 1836 Inclusive. . . . 2nd ed. Philadelphia: T. and J. W. Johnson, 1840.
Petition to George Tompkins, between 9 and 15 Mar. 1839; “The Late Proceedings,” Times and Seasons, 15 June 1841, 2:447–449.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
“Astounding Mormon Disclosures! Letter from Gen. Bennett,” Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 8 July 1842, [2]; “Further Mormon Developments!! 2d Letter from Gen. Bennett,” Sangamo Journal, 15 July 1842, [2].
Sangamo Journal. Springfield, IL. 1831–1847.
See JS, Journal, 10–23 Aug. and 7–28 Oct. 1842.
Message of the Governor of the State of Illinois, 4.
Message of the Governor of the State of Illinois, in Relation to the Disturbances in Hancock County, December, 21, 1844. Springfield, IL: Walters and Weber, 1844.
People in Nauvoo publicly argued for this interpretation by late 1842, though they may have privately adopted this understanding much earlier. (See “Remarks on Chartered Rights,” Wasp, 24 Dec. 1842, [2]–[3]; “Vested Rights of Nauvoo,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 30 Aug. 1843, [2]–[3]; Oaks, “Suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor,” 878–884; Walker, “Habeas Corpus in Early Nineteenth Century Mormonism,” 5–97; and Smith, “Untouchable,” 8–42.)
The Wasp. Nauvoo, IL. Apr. 1842–Apr. 1843.
Nauvoo Neighbor. Nauvoo, IL. 1843–1845.
Oaks, Dallin H. “The Suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor.” Utah Law Review 9 (Winter 1965): 862–903.
Walker, Jeffrey N. “Habeas Corpus in Early Nineteenth-Century Mormonism: Joseph Smith’s Legal Bulwark for Personal Freedom.” BYU Studies 52, no. 1 (2013): 4–97.
Smith, Alex D. “Untouchable: Joseph Smith’s Use of the Law as Catalyst for Assassination.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 112, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 8–42.
See An Act Regulating the Proceeding on Writs of Habeas Corpus [22 Jan. 1827], Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois, pp. 324–326, secs. 3, 8, 10, 11.
The Public and General Statute Laws of the State of Illinois: Containing All the Laws . . . Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at Their First Session, Commencing December 1, 1834, and Ending February 13, 1835; and at Their Second Session, Commencing December 7, 1835, and Ending January 18, 1836; and Those Passed by the Tenth General Assembly, at Their Session Commencing December 5, 1836, and Ending March 6, 1837; and at Their Special Session, Commencing July 10, and Ending July 22, 1837. . . . Compiled by Jonathan Young Scammon. Chicago: Stephen F. Gale, 1839.
Woodruff, Journal, 7–12 Nov. 1842.
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.
On 19 November 1842, George Brown, a Latter-day Saint in Nauvoo who had been arrested and ordered to stand trial before the Hancock County Circuit Court for larceny, petitioned the Nauvoo Municipal Court for a writ of habeas corpus. On 21 November, the court held a hearing for Brown and discharged him. (Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book, 8 [second numbering].)
Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book / Nauvoo, IL, Municipal Court. “Docket of the Municipal Court of the City of Nauvoo,” ca. 1843–1845. In Historian's Office, Historical Record Book, 1843–1874, pp. 51–150 and pp. 1–19 (second numbering). CHL. MS 3434.
In habeas corpus proceedings, courts only had the authority to remand prisoners and set their bail or to discharge them from custody. An editorial in the 15 August 1842 issue of the Times and Seasons acknowledged that habeas corpus hearings could not determine innocence or guilt, demonstrating that at least some church leaders were aware of the limitations of habeas corpus. Nevertheless, on at least two occasions the Nauvoo Municipal Court acquitted the prisoners from all charges in addition to discharging them from custody. (Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries, 1:291–292; Kent, Commentaries on American Law, 2:25; “Persecution,” Times and Seasons, 15 Aug. 1842, 3:888–889; Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book, 17–19 [second numbering], 51–52.)
Tucker, St. George. Blackstone's Commentaries: With Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States; and of the Commonwealth of Virginia. 5 vols. Philadelphia: William Young Birch and Abraham Small, 1803.
Kent, James. Commentaries on American Law. Vol. 2. New York: O. Halsted, 1827.
Nauvoo Municipal Court Docket Book / Nauvoo, IL, Municipal Court. “Docket of the Municipal Court of the City of Nauvoo,” ca. 1843–1845. In Historian's Office, Historical Record Book, 1843–1874, pp. 51–150 and pp. 1–19 (second numbering). CHL. MS 3434.
“Introductory,” Nauvoo (IL) Expositor, 7 June 1844, [2]; Message of the Governor of the State of Illinois, 4, 21; Smith, “Untouchable,” 8–42.
Nauvoo Expositor. Nauvoo, IL. 1844.
Message of the Governor of the State of Illinois, in Relation to the Disturbances in Hancock County, December, 21, 1844. Springfield, IL: Walters and Weber, 1844.
Smith, Alex D. “Untouchable: Joseph Smith’s Use of the Law as Catalyst for Assassination.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 112, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 8–42.
The 1827 statute gave legal officers three days to bring the prisoner before the court for a habeas corpus hearing unless they were more than twenty miles away from the court, in which case additional days were granted. The Nauvoo ordinance removed the allotted three days and instead ordered the officers to appear immediately before the court unless the prisoner was housed at the county jail at Carthage, Illinois. In that case, the officers had five days to bring the petitioner before the municipal court. (An Act . . . on Writs of Habeas Corpus, pp. 322–323, sec. 1.)
The Revised Code of Laws, of Illinois, Enacted at the Fifth General Assembly, at Their Session Held at Vandalia, Commencing on the Fourth Day of December, 1826, and Ending the Nineteenth of February, 1827. Vandalia, IL: Robert Blackwell, 1827.
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