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Times and Seasons, 1 June 1842

Source Note

Times and Seasons (, Hancock Co., IL), 1 June 1842, vol. 3, no. 15, pp. 799–814; edited by JS. For more complete source information, see the source note for Letter to Isaac Galland, 22 Mar. 1839.

Historical Introduction

The 1 June 1842 issue of the periodical Times and Seasons was the seventh edited by JS. He had assumed the editorship of the newspaper beginning with its 1 March 1842 issue, and in that role he took responsibility for all of the published content, including this 1 June issue. The issue contained an article on the “Word of Wisdom,” which was a revelation JS dictated in February 1833 outlining a code of health for the Latter-day Saints; an installment from the serialized “History of Joseph Smith”; and reprints of articles from newspapers, including Latter-day Saint publications, on topics such as ’s missionary work in , JS’s work on the Book of Abraham, the necessity of baptism, the beliefs of church members, and ancient writings discovered in the . The issue also included a letter from the presidency and high council of the , Illinois, stake “to the saints scattered abroad.”
In addition to these items, the issue published editorial content that was presumably written by JS as editor or by his editorial staff. This editorial content, which is featured here, includes four items: commentary on the assassination attempt on former governor ; a lengthy statement disputing a speech , a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, made criticizing the Saints; a preface to an article about the Jews; and a notice to church members in the eastern about ’s planned fund-raising mission for the construction of the .
Note that only the editorial content created specifically for this issue of the Times and Seasons is annotated here. Articles reprinted from other papers, letters, conference minutes, and notices, are reproduced here but not annotated. Items that are stand-alone JS documents are annotated elsewhere; links are provided to these stand-alone documents.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Although JS was named as the editor of the 15 February issue, he began editing the newspaper with the 1 March issue.

  2. [2]

    See “Editorial Method”.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Times and Seasons, 1 June 1842
*Times and Seasons, 1 June 1842
*Times and Seasons, 1 June 1842 Notice, circa 1 June 1842 Times and Seasons, 1 June 1842

Page 806

 
——————————
TIMES AND SEASONS.
CITY OF ,
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 1842.
——————————
 
Editorial Note
The first editorial addressed the attempted assassination of , who was shot by an unknown assailant on 6 May 1842 in , Missouri. On 21 May, the Quincy Whig reported a rumor that a Latter-day Saint had shot Boggs and that JS had prophesied Boggs would suffer a violent death. JS wrote a letter to the Quincy Whig on 22 May denying any Latter-day Saint connection to the assassination attempt. Although initial reports suggested that Boggs was dead, he had only been wounded, and he later recovered.
It is asserted by several newspapers that of the State of is dead, and that he has been murdered by the hand of an assassin; some would insinuate that it has been done by a Mormon;—to such we would say, BAH!!!! we shall not believe that he is dead until we have further testimony; we have seen too many of the intrigues of , to “believe all things.”
We suppose that some of the Anti-Mormons belonging to the “Great Mass,” (alias small potatoe) “convention,” could assist very well in proposing, if not of being the authors of, a story of that kind, for political effect in the coming contest.
 
————
Editorial Note
The Times and Seasons reprinted from the Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review an article recounting a speech given by , a former governor of and the current Whig candidate for governor. In his speech, given on 4 May 1842 in Edwardsville, Illinois, Duncan spoke at length against the Saints; he especially opposed the act incorporating the city of Nauvoo, claiming it gave too much power to city officials and the . Duncan’s attack may have been motivated by JS’s December 1841 statement of support for , the Democratic nominee for governor. According to one early history, after JS came out in favor of the Democrats, Whig newspapers in Illinois “teemed with accounts of the wonders and enormities of , and of the awful wickedness of a party which would consent to receive the support of such miscreants.” Duncan himself, the history explained, “took the stump on this subject in good earnest, and expected to be elected governor almost on this question alone.”
In the reprint of the Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review article, JS—or perhaps someone designated by him—added commentary within the article itself, which appeared as text within brackets (rendered here as stylized brackets), and at the end of the account. The commentary defended JS and the church against ’s attacks, especially those he made against the charter, as well as his accusations that Latter-day Saints were guilty of religious discrimination.
From the Telegraph and Review.
,
“Addressed the people of this county on the 4th inst at Edwardsville. He was listened to by one of the largest audiences we have ever seen assembled on a similar occasion, since our residence in the ; and the attention and manifest gratification with which he was listened to, furnished the strongest evidence that the various positions he assumed met with the cordial co-operation of his hearers.
“Much of his time was taken up in refuting the base and groveling charges preferred against him by the State Register, of being the founder of both the Internal Improvement and State Bank Systems. And the evidence he furnished, forced from the most prejudiced of his political opponents the reluctant confession, that he had triumphantly vindicated himself, and shown the falsity of the charges.
“His views in regard to the dangerous and alarming powers which were granted to the Mormons, in various charters passed at the last session of our Legislature, and the firm and decided stand he assumed against making them a priveleged sect over all other religious denominations and classes of our citizens, met with universal approbation by all who listened to him. declared he was for extending to them the same privileges, and none other, that our citizens in common enjoyed under the provisions of the constitution and laws. -[This is all the Mormons ask.]- But all extraordinary anti-republican and arbitrary powers, which the corruption of a Legislature granted them solely for the purpose of obtaining their political support, -[let the Legislature thank for that compliment,]- he unhesitatingly proclaimed he was for taking from them, -[when he gets the power.]- The referred to one of the ordinances of their , which provided that if any person spoke lightly of, or doubted, their religion, upon conviction thereof the offender was liable to a fine of five hundred dollars and six months imprisonment.
“This disgraceful attempt to form, in a republican government, an established religion by legal enactment, created throughout the audience a great sensation, and opened their eyes to the rapid strides that were being made in their very midst towards an arbitrary and monarchial form of government.” -[If had said that his disgraceful attempt to palm upon his political party, and the good people of generally, a list of lies of the blackest kind would certainly fail until the faithful, righteous, and eternal prediction had been fulfilled upon his head, that all liars shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; and he utterly fail of the chair of state, there might have been some good reason to believe that a “sensation” of joy was produced in the audience and that their eyes and ears were open to the voice of truth, and that they were ready to hail the downfall of an aspiring demagogue, with those demonstrations of hallelujah which became a noble and insulted people.]-
“He next referred to a correspondence in the Times and Seasons, published at , between Dr. C[harles] V. Dyer, of , a distinguished Loco foco, and Joe Smith and , the prophet and the military leader of the Mormons. That correspondence divulges the fact, that the Mormons under the solicitation of Dr. Dyer, -[who is an Abolitionist]- are prepared to act with them.—And evinces his willingness at any moment to march against the Penitentiary in with his armed force, established under the auspices, -[as Joe Smith says,]- of and , and release the three Abolitionists now in confinement there. This correspondence we shall publish at length in a few days, that every man may judge of its alarming tendencies for himself.”
“It struck us with a good deal of astonishment that Joe Smith and should thus publicly avow their abolition principles in the very face of the proclamation of the prophet, as the military leader of the mormons, to all his followers to vote for for Governor, WHO IS HIMSELF ONE OF THE LARGEST SLAVE HOLDERS IN THE STATE. To us it displayed an inconsistency “irreconcileable with common honesty.”
The above is from the speech political of , and in perusing it we find that [“]a priviledged sect,” “charters passed in’ the last session of the Legislature;”—“anti-republican and arbitrary powers:”—“Joe Smith,” and “a corrupt Legislature;” trouble the chaste mind of this pure man:—this noble champion of truth; this philanthropist, and friend of equal rights; so intently was his mind bent upon this all-absorbing subject, that he had scarce time to speak upon any other.—It is true that he made a bold stand against “gross and grovelling charges made against him by the editor of the State Register,” (so says the Telegraph and Review,”) but then so small was this in his estimation, (if you may judge of the [p. 806]
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Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Times and Seasons, 1 June 1842
ID #
8149
Total Pages
16
Print Volume Location
JSP, D10:115–126
Handwriting on This Page
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Footnotes

  1. [1]

    “Assassination of Ex-Governor Boggs of Missouri,” Quincy (IL) Whig, 21 May 1842, [3].

    Quincy Whig. Quincy, IL. 1838–1856.

  2. [2]

    Letter to Sylvester Bartlett, 22 May 1842.

  3. [3]

    News Item, Quincy (IL) Whig, 28 May 1842, [2].

    Quincy Whig. Quincy, IL. 1838–1856.

  4. [4]

    See 1 Corinthians 13:7.

  5. [5]

    The convention was held because participants were concerned about a proclamation the First Presidency had made in May 1841 calling all Saints residing outside of Hancock County to move into the county. Worried about the Saints’ growing numbers and political power, convention members nominated individuals from both parties to run in the August 1841 election on a platform that opposed the Saints. “From this convention,” Thomas Gregg, who wrote an early history of Hancock County, explained, “may be dated the rise of the Anti-Mormon party, and the origin of the term ‘Anti-Mormon,’ as applied to those who were seeking to counteract Mormon influence in the county and State.” The new Anti-Mormon Party held another convention on 29 May 1842, where it nominated a full slate of candidates for the upcoming election. (Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois, 276–277; [Thomas C. Sharp], “The Last Move,” Warsaw [IL] Signal, 9 July 1842, [2].)

    Gregg, Thomas. History of Hancock County, Illinois, Together with an Outline History of the State, and a Digest of State Laws. Chicago: Charles C. Chapman, 1880.

    Warsaw Signal. Warsaw, IL. 1841–1853.

  6. [6]

    The “coming contest” was the upcoming gubernatorial election in Illinois. The Whigs were running Joseph Duncan, former governor of the state, while the Democratic candidate was Adam W. Snyder—though he died on 14 May 1842, before the election. In December 1841, JS had issued a letter, published in the Times and Seasons, declaring his support for Snyder. (Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois, 101–102, 283; Snyder, Adam W. Snyder, 394; Letter to Friends in Illinois, 20 Dec. 1841.)

    Gregg, Thomas. History of Hancock County, Illinois, Together with an Outline History of the State, and a Digest of State Laws. Chicago: Charles C. Chapman, 1880.

    Snyder, John Francis. Adam W. Snyder, and His Period in Illinois History, 1817–1842. Virginia, IL: E. Needham, 1906.

  7. [7]

    Letter to Friends in Illinois, 20 Dec. 1841.

  8. [8]

    Ford, History of Illinois, 269.

    Ford, Thomas. A History of Illinois, from Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847. Containing a Full Account of the Black Hawk War, the Rise, Progress, and Fall of Mormonism, the Alton and Lovejoy Riots, and Other Important and Interesting Events. Chicago: S. C. Griggs; New York: Ivison and Phinney, 1854.

  9. [9]

    See “Gov. Duncan,” Alton (IL) Telegraph and Democratic Review, 14 May 1842, [2].

    Alton Telegraph and Democratic Review. Alton, IL. 1841–1850.

  10. [10]

    See “Gov’r. Duncan and Internal Improvements,” Illinois State Register (Springfield), 8 Apr. 1842, [2]. The Illinois State Register was a newspaper published in Springfield by William Walters. It was “the acknowledged organ of the Democratic party” in Illinois. (History of Fayette County, Illinois, 40.)

    Illinois State Register. Springfield, IL. 1839–1861.

    History of Fayette County, Illinois, with Illustrations Descriptive of Its Scenery, and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers. Philadelphia: Brink, McDonough, 1878.

  11. [11]

    In 1821, the Illinois legislature passed a law creating the Bank of Illinois, which was “wholly supported by the credit of the State.” Duncan was not serving in the Illinois government at that time. As governor of Illinois from 1834 to 1838, Duncan oversaw the implementation of “a system of internal improvements without a parallel in the grandeur of its conception,” including railroad, river, and canal improvements, which cost the state nearly $15 million before the legislature, in 1840, repealed the laws authorizing these improvements. (Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois, 78, 96–98.)

    Gregg, Thomas. History of Hancock County, Illinois, Together with an Outline History of the State, and a Digest of State Laws. Chicago: Charles C. Chapman, 1880.

  12. [12]

    See Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840.

  13. [13]

    This and other instances of stylized brackets denote bracketed editorial commentary added by the Times and Seasons editors.

  14. [14]

    Earlier in the year, the Times and Seasons had reported that when JS pledged his support to Adam W. Snyder and John Moore in their campaign for governor and lieutenant governor, he noted that “no men were more efficient” in helping the Saints “procure our great chartered privileges.” (“State Gubernatorial Convention,” Times and Seasons, 1 Jan. 1842, 3:651, italics in original.)

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

  15. [15]

    Although critics like Duncan argued that Nauvoo’s incorporating act gave the city unprecedented powers, most of the individual powers were not unique to Nauvoo’s charter. Later, in June 1842, Hyrum Smith expressed his displeasure with Duncan’s declarations that he would rescind the rights provided in the Nauvoo charter if he was elected governor. In a letter to the editor of the Quincy Whig canceling his subscription to the newspaper because of its support of Duncan, Smith stated, “I am not a friend to Joseph Duncan, nor no other man that will make the taking away the rights of his fellow citizens a hobby to ride into office upon.” (Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, 11 June 1842, Letter to the Editor, Quincy [IL] Whig, 25 June 1842, [2]; see also Historical Introduction to Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo, 16 Dec. 1840.)

    Quincy Whig. Quincy, IL. 1838–1856.

  16. [16]

    See Revelation 21:8; and Revelation, 30 Aug. 1831 [D&C 63:17].

  17. [17]

    This bracketed editorial commentary was added by the Times and Seasons editors.

  18. [18]

    Dyer was a prominent abolitionist who galvanized the formation of the Chicago chapter of the Anti-Slavery Society after abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy was murdered in Alton, Illinois, in 1837. The Locofocos were an offshoot of the Democratic Party that formed in October 1835 to champion the rights of the working class. Their name stemmed from a political meeting that party regulars attempted to shut down by turning out the gaslights; those supporting the working class lit matches called “locofocos” so that the meeting could continue. In 1837, the Locofocos came back to the Democratic Party but still maintained their identity within the party. (Campbell, Fighting Slavery in Chicago, 18–22; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 546.)

    Campbell, Tom. Fighting Slavery in Chicago: Abolitionists, the Law of Slavery, and Lincoln. Chicago: Ampersand, 2009.

    Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

  19. [19]

    For this correspondence, see “Universal Liberty,” Times and Seasons, 15 Mar. 1842, 3:722–724; Letter to John C. Bennett, 7 Mar. 1842; and Letter from John C. Bennett, 8 Mar. 1842.

  20. [20]

    This bracketed text was in the original Telegraph and Review article.

  21. [21]

    This bracketed text was in the original Telegraph and Review article.

  22. [22]

    The “three Quincy Abolitionists” were three male teachers at the Mission Institute, “a college for Presbyterian missionaries and safe haven for contraband blacks,” in Quincy, Illinois. The instructors had apparently been captured, forcibly taken into Missouri, and sentenced to twelve years in the Missouri penitentiary “for barely teaching a fellow being how to go to a place where he may learn the sciences—have his own wages, aye, and his own person.” In a letter to Dyer, Bennett criticized Missouri’s imprisonment of the men, likening it to the persecution the Saints had faced in Missouri before their expulsion from the state in 1838. He advocated “a strong, concerted, and vigorous effort, for UNIVERSAL LIBERTY, to every soul of man—civil, religious, and political.” (Ankrom, Stephen A. Douglas, 174; Charles V. Dyer, Chicago, IL, to John C. Bennett, Nauvoo, IL, 3 Jan. 1842; John C. Bennett, Nauvoo, IL, to Charles V. Dyer, [Chicago, IL], 20 Jan. 1842, in “Universal Liberty,” Times and Seasons, 15 Mar. 1842, 3:723, 724, emphasis in original.)

    Ankrom, Reg. Stephen A. Douglas: The Political Apprenticeship, 1833–1843. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

  23. [23]

    The Times and Seasons included only one JS letter in the Bennett-Dyer correspondence. In that letter, JS expressed outrage for the imprisonment of the three abolitionists by the Missourians, but he said little else about abolition. Duncan therefore seems to be exaggerating when he speaks of JS’s “abolition principles.” In the 1840 census, Adam W. Snyder was listed as owning three slaves. Slavery had been prohibited throughout Illinois since the state adopted its first constitution in 1818. However, some black men and women remained enslaved in Illinois as remnants of the territorial-era policy that overlooked the antislavery clauses of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. (Letter to John C. Bennett, 7 Mar. 1842; 1840 U.S. Census, St. Clair Co., IL, 311; Zucker, “Race Relations in Ante-Bellum Illinois,” 27–75, 157–185.)

    Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.

    Zucker, Charles N. “The Free Negro Question: Race Relations in Ante-Bellum Illinois, 1801–1860.” PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1972.

  24. [24]

    This was likely a familiar phrase at the time. (See, for example, “A Reply to Mr. Alexander M‘Caine,” Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review, Jan. 1830, 75.)

    Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review. New York City. 1818–1881.

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