amount to a denial of our faith, as that land is the place where the Zion of God shall stand, according to our faith and belief in the revelations of God, and upon which Israel will be gathered, according to the prophets; and, secondly, the propositions were unfair, notwithstanding they offered double price for our lands, in thirty days, or to sell theirs at the same rate, for this plain reason, that the whole large county of Jackson would be as thirty to one, or nearly so, in comparison with the matter in question, and in supposition, for one thousand dollars, two thousand dollars to our people was asking for three hundred thousand dollars, the exorbitant sum of six hundred thousand dollars, taking the land, rich and poor, within thirty days, with the reproachable, vicious, un-American, and unconstitutional proviso, that the committee on our part bind themselves "that no Mormons should ever settle in Jackson county;" and whereas, our committee proposed to the said Jackson committee (if they would not grant us our rights otherwise), that our people would buy the land of those who were unwilling to live among {128} our people, in that county, and pay them in one year, they allowing the damage we have sustained in the loss of a printing office, apparatus and book-work, houses, property, etc., to come out of the purchase money, but no answer returned; and whereas, to show our honest intentions, and awaken the friends of virtue, humanity, and equal rights, it becomes our duty to lay our case before the world, to be weighed in the balances of public opinion. Now, therefore, as citizens of the United States and leading Elders in the Church of the Latter-day Saints, residing in the State of Missouri, in behalf of the Church, we, the undersigned, do make this solemn appeal to the people and constitutional authorities of this nation, and to the ends of the earth, for peace; that we may have the privilege of enjoying our religious rights and immunities, and worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences, as guaranteed to every citizen by the constitution of the national and state governments; that although the laws have been broken, and are defied in Jackson county, we may be enabled to regain and enjoy out rights and property, agreeable to law, in this boasted land of liberty.