In laying our case before your honorable body, we say that we are willing, and always have been, to conform to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and of this State. We ask in common with others the protection of the laws. We ask for the privileges guaranteed all free citizens of the United States and of this State to be extended to us, and that we may be permitted to settle and live where we please, and worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience without molestation. And while we ask for ourselves this privilege, we are willing all others should enjoy the same. Elder David H. Redfield was appointed to present this petition to the legislature; and on that mission he arrived at Jefferson City on the seventeenth day of December. The same day of his arrival he had an interview with Governor Boggs, in which the governor manifested much interest, and on being informed that the Missourians were committing depredations against the saints, promised to write Judge King and Colonel Price ordering them to put down every hostile appearance. In the course of this conversation Boggs admitted that the "stipulations entered into by the Mormons to leave the State, and signing the deeds of trust, were unconstitutional and not valid." "We want the legislature to pass a law to that effect, showing that the stipulations and deeds of trust are not valid and are unconstitutional," said Redfield, and went on to say if they did not, the character of the State was forever lost. Previous to the arrival of Redfield, the governor's exterminating order, General Clark's reports, the report of the _ex parte_ investigation at Richmond, and a lot of other papers, had been forwarded to the legislature and referred to a special joint committee. That committee reported the day following Redfield's arrival at Jefferson City, the eighteenth of December. And to show in what bad repute these documents were held by this committee, I need only say that it refused to allow them to be published with the sanction of the legislature, because the evidence adduced at Richmond in a great degree was _ex parte_ and not of a character to be desired for the basis of a fair and candid investigation. The report concluded with three resolutions: one to the effect that it was inexpedient at that time to prosecute further the inquiry into the cause of the late disturbances; another to the effect that it was inexpedient to publish any of the documents accompanying the governor's message in relation to those disturbances; the last favored the appointment of a joint committee from the house and senate to investigate the troubles and the conduct of the military operations to suppress them. These resolutions were subsequently referred to a joint select committee with instructions to report a bill in conformity thereto, and to which I shall again allude.