About the first of October, Elder Rigdon and Elias Higbee were in Carthage, and from a conversation with Judge Douglass, they learned that Governor Carlin had purposely issued an illegal writ for the arrest of Joseph, thinking he would go to Carthage to be acquitted on _habeas corpus_ proceedings before Judge Douglass; when an officer of the State would be present with a legal writ and serve it upon him immediately, and thus drag him to Missouri. The plot, however, was discovered in time to thwart it, and Joseph, in company with Elder John Taylor, Wilson Law and John D. Parker, left Nauvoo for the home of Elder Taylor's father, about a day and a half's ride from Nauvoo, and there the Prophet remained for about a week. Meantime, through Major Warren, master in chancery, Joseph's case was presented to Justice Butterfield, of Chicago, and United States attorney for the district of Illinois. He wrote out an elaborate review of the case in which he claimed that Joseph could be released on a writ of _habeas corpus_; that he would have the right to prove that he was not in Missouri at the time the alleged crime was committed--that of necessity, if he was guilty of the crime with which he was charged, he must have committed it in Illinois, and therefore was not a fugitive from justice--and the governor of Illinois had no right to surrender him to the authorities of Missouri as such. Mr. Butterfield contended that a warrant for the action of the governor of a State, in delivering up a person to the authorities of another State, was found in that clause of the Constitution which says: A person charged in any State with treason, felony or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime. (Constitution, Article 4; Section 2.) Mr. Butterfield insisted that it was unnecessary to inquire into the laws that had been enacted by Congress on the subject, since: Congress has just so much power and no more than is expressly given by the said clause in the Constitution. "What persons, then," he inquires, "can be surrendered up by the governor of one State to the governor of another?" First: He must be a person charged with treason, felony or other crime. It is sufficient if he be charged with the commission of crime, either by indictment found or by affidavit. Second: He must be a person who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State. It is not sufficient to satisfy this branch of the Constitution, that he should be "charged" with having fled from justice. Unless he has actually fled from the State, where the offense was committed, into another State, the governor of this State has no jurisdiction over his person and cannot deliver him up.