When the exiled Saints were driven from Jackson County, they found a place of refuge in Clay County, just over the Missouri River to the north. Here the people were hospitable and kindly disposed. The Saints had no intention of remaining in Clay County, for they fully expected to be restored to their former homes. After exhausting every source of redress, even to an appeal to the President of the United States, they prepared to make permanent settlement by purchasing lands. As time passed and the indication pointed to the gathering of the Latter-day Saints in that county, the citizens became alarmed. The people from Jackson were constantly menacing the Saints, even though they were peacefully minding their business in their new homes, but wrong begets wrong, and the deep-seated hatred of these mobbers had no end. Finally the citizens of Clay County decided to do the wrong thing, to their everlasting injury, and rid themselves, once and for all, from the danger which they felt confronted them by harboring the "Mormons" in their midst. That there was a danger of conflict there can be no question, with the menacing influence on the south, and growing hatred, because of association of the mobbers with many of the residents of the county to the north. However, these Clay County citizens preferred to expel the Saints in a gentle way if it could be done. A mass meeting was held June 29, 1836, for the purpose of presenting, with united front, a petition to the undesirable exiles, kindly requesting them to move to some part of the country where they could be entirely by themselves. The new country of Wisconsin was suggested as a suitable place. A report of conditions as they understood them and resolutions embodying their request, were unanimously approved. They did not fail to call attention to their great hospitality and kindness in 1833, when they received the exiles among them; and endeavored to impress upon the Saints the thought that they were devoid of "one spark of gratitude" if they refused to accept the suggestions offered to depart in peace to a more congenial locality. Yet they frankly admitted, "we do not contend that we have the least right to expel them by force," but if they would not go they were sure it would lead to civil war, "bearing ruin, woe, and desolation, in its course." Some of the reasons why the "Mormons" had become "objects of the deepest hatred and detestation" to many of the citizens were declared in the petition to be as follows: "They are eastern men, whose manners, habits, customs, and even dialect, are essentially different from our own. They are non-slave-holders, and opposed to slavery, which in this peculiar period, when Abolitionism has reared its deformed and haggard visage in our land, is well calculated to excite deep and abiding prejudices in any community where slavery is tolerated and protected.