Far West remained their goal in belief longer than in fact. Before 1838 ended they had been forced to agree to leave Missouri; yet they returned in secret to relay the corner-stone of the tabernacle and continued to dream of this as their future home. Up to the time of their expulsion from Missouri in 1838 they are not proved to have been guilty of any crime that could extenuate the gross intolerance which turned them out. As individuals they could live among Gentiles in peace. It seems to have been the collective soul of the church that was unbearable to the frontiersmen. The same intolerance which had facilitated their departure from Ohio and compelled it from Missouri, in a few more years drove them again on their migrations. The cohesion of the church in politics, economics, and religion explains the opposition which it cannot well excuse. In Hancock County, Illinois, not far from the old Fort Madison ferry which led into the half-breed country of Iowa, the Mormons discovered a village of Commerce, once founded by a communistic settlement from which the business genius of Smith now purchased it on easy terms. It was occupied in 1839, renamed Nauvoo in 1840, and in it a new tabernacle was begun in 1841. From the poverty-stricken young clairvoyant of fifteen years before, the prophet had now developed into a successful man of affairs, with ambitions that reached even to the presidency at Washington. With a strong sect behind him, money at his disposal, and supernatural powers in which all faithful saints believed, Joseph could go far. Nauvoo had a population of about fifteen thousand by the end of 1840. Coming into Illinois upon the eve of a closely contested presidential election, at a time when the state feared to lose its population in an emigration to avoid taxation, and with a vote that was certain to be cast for one candidate or another as a unit, the Mormons insured for themselves a hearty welcome from both Democrats and Whigs. A complaisant legislature gave to the new Zion a charter full of privilege in the making and enforcing of laws, so that the ideal of the Mormons of a state within the state was fully realized. The town council was emancipated from state control, its courts were independent, and its militia was substantially at the beck of Smith. Proselyting and good management built up the town rapidly. To an importunate creditor Smith described it as a "deathly sickly hole," but to the possible convert it was advertised as a land of milk and honey. Here it began to be noticed that desertions from the church were not uncommon; that conversion alone kept full and swelled its ranks. It was noised about that the wealthy convert had the warmest reception, but was led on to let his religious passion work his impoverishment for the good of the cause.