The Life of John Taylor: Third President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day SaintsRoberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
History
The Life of John Taylor: Third President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Latter Day Saint churches; Taylor, John, 1808-1887
A mass meeting was held at Warsaw, the prevailing sentiment of which
was that "to seek redress in the ordinary mode would be utterly
ineffectual." The meeting therefore adopted resolutions announcing
that those present were at all times ready to co-operate with their
fellow citizens in Missouri and Iowa to exterminate--_utterly
exterminate_--the Mormon leaders--the authors their troubles. Another
mass meeting was held at Carthage at which the Warsaw resolutions were
adopted.
The anti-Mormon press teemed with intemperate articles, outrageously
false accusations and frantic appeals to the very worst passions of
human nature. The citizens of Nauvoo were represented as a horde of
lawless ruffians and brigands; anti-American and anti-republican;
steeped in crime and iniquity; opposed to freedom of speech and to
progress; among whom neither persons nor property were secure. They
were accused also of having designs upon the citizens of Illinois and
of the United States; and for these things the people were called upon
to rise _en masse_ and utterly exterminate them.
While these falsehoods were being extensively circulated through
Illinois and the surrounding states, it was the most difficult thing,
almost impossible to get a true statement of the case before the
country. True accounts of the proceedings of the city council in the
_Expositor_ affair were published in the _Times and Seasons_ and also
in the _Neighbor_; but it was impossible to circulate them in Hancock
and surrounding counties, as they were destroyed at the post offices.
To get them abroad Elder Taylor had to send them a distance of thirty
or forty miles from Nauvoo before posting them. In some instances they
had to be taken to St. Louis, a distance of two hundred miles, to
ensure their reaching their destination.
The systematic circulation of falsehood on the one hand, and the
suppression of the truth on the other, resulted in a tremendous storm
of indignation against the Saints--especially against the leading
Elders--that threatened to overwhelm them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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