The answer to all this was given in a public document drawn up to voice the sentiment of a great mass meeting of the people of Clay county--a people, be it remembered, who at the time (1836) were not unfriendly towards the Saints, but a people who a few years before had received the Saints into their homes, and given them shelter when they were exiles from Jackson county, and who, at the time of the utterance I am about to quote was published, were in a covenant of peace with the Saints, and the Saints in a covenant of peace with them--I say the answer to all disclaimers on the part of the Saints respecting their not being abolitionists was found in this public utterance: "They are eastern men, whose manners, habits, customs and even dialect are essentially different from our own. They are non-slaveholders, 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." I call attention to these facts that the student of the history of the Church may appreciate the weight of influence they would have in {XXIV} creating popular sentiment against the Saints; a matter which hitherto, if I may be permitted to say so, has not been fully appreciated. One can readily see what a potent factor this sentiment against New England and other northern states people would be in the hands of political demagogues and sectarian priests seeking to exterminate what they would respectively consider an undesirable element in politics and a religious rival. That both political demagogues and sectarian priests made the most of the opportunity which hostile sentiment in Missouri against abolition and abolitionists afforded, abundantly appears in the pages of the first volume of the Church History. That sentiment was appealed to from the first; indeed in the very first manifesto of the mob--known as "The Secret Constitution," [6]--issued against the Saints in Missouri, it was a prominent feature. This was at Independence, in July, 1833. In that "Manifesto" the following passage occurs: "More than a year since, it was ascertained that they [the Saints] had been tampering with our slaves, and endeavoring to sow dissensions and raise seditions amongst them. Of this their Mormon leaders were informed, and they said they would deal with any of their members who should again in like case offend. But how specious are appearances. In a late number of the _Star_, published in Independence by the leaders of the sect, there is an article inviting free negroes and mulattoes from other states to become Mormons, and remove and settle among us. This exhibits them in still more odious colors. It manifests a desire on the part of their society, to inflict on our society an injury that they know would be to us entirely insupportable, and one of the surest means of driving us