Resolved by the City Council of the City of that the printing establishment from whence issues the “Nauvoo Expositor” is a public Nuisance and also all of said Nauvoo Expositors which may be, or exist in said establishment, and the Mayor is instructed to cause said printing establishment and papers to be removed without delay, in such manner as he shall direct
The version of this resolution published by the Nauvoo Neighbor substitutes the word “office” for “establishment.” The Nauvoo Expositor’s printing office was in Nauvoo’s third (southeastern) municipal ward in lot 4 of block 19 of the Wells addition (on the north side of Mulholland Street between Woodruff and Page streets). (“For the Neighbor,” Nauvoo Neighbor, Extra, 17 June 1844, [1]; “For the Neighbor,” Nauvoo Neighbor, 19 June 1844, [3].)
William Blackstone, an influential English legal commentator, divided nuisances into two classes: “public or common nuisances,” which affect an entire community, and “private nuisances,” which affect an individual. The act incorporating Nauvoo, also called the Nauvoo charter, granted the city council the power “to make regulations to secure the general health of the inhabitants, to declare what shall be a nuisance, and to prevent and remove the same.” On 10 June 1844, the city council also declared an old barn on Hyde Street a nuisance and ordered it to be removed. (Blackstone, Commentaries, vol. 2, bk. 3, p. 170, italics in original; Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840, in JSP, D7:486; Minutes, 10 June 1844, p. 204 herein; Alanson Ripley et al. to Nauvoo City Council, Petition, Nauvoo, IL, 10 June 1844, Nauvoo, IL, Records, CHL; Nauvoo City Council Minute Book, 10 June 1844, 212.)