To those unacquainted with our relationship to Missouri, and the accumulated wrongs and repeated aggressions that we have received from the hands of that State, our language may appear harsh and ill timed; but those who are in possession of those facts know better. Their merciless, unrelenting, inhuman prosecutions and persecutions, from the time of our first settlement in that state until the present, have been wholly and entirely unprovoked and without the shadow of law. Joseph Smith has been suffered to be taken time and again by them; we say suffered, because he could not be legally and constitutionally taken, Joseph Smith never committed the crimes of which he is charged. He is an innocent man. But allowing their false, diabolical accusations to be true, what then? Does it follow that he is continually to be followed for the same offense? Verily no. The Constitution of the United States expressly says--"Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be _twice_ put in jeopardy of life or limb." And yet we find that the State of Missouri has put Joseph Smith in jeopardy no less than four or five times. He was tried once by a military tribunal in Missouri, and sentenced to be shot. He was afterwards tried by a pretended civil (mobocratic) court; and since then he has been several times apprehended, tried, and acquitted for the same offense, in this State, by Missouri requisitions. Is he still illegally and unconstitutionally to be held in abeyance by these miscreants? or shall we as freeborn American citizens, assert our rights, put the law in force upon those lawless, prowling vagabonds and say that he shall be free? Shall we suffer our pockets to be picked through the influence of these scoundrels eternally, by defending ourselves against vexatious lawsuits? or shall we take a more summary way, and by a legal course punish the aggressors, proclaim our freedom, and shield ourselves under the broad folds of the Constitution? The latter is the course for us to pursue. The ordinance passed by the City Council will secure this object; {113} and we are glad to find that the opinion of J. Lamborn, attorney general, and J. N. McDougall, correspond so much with our own--"That the Nauvoo Legion is an independent military organization, and is by law expressly required to sustain the municipal laws of Nauvoo. What are we to say about these kidnappers who infest our borders and carry away our citizens--those infernals in human shape?