The municipal court shall have power to grant writs of _habeas corpus_ in all cases arising under the ordinances of the city council. And in addition there was the general welfare provision, which provided that the City council shall have power and authority to make, ordain, establish and execute such ordinances not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, or of this State, as they may deem necessary for the peace, benefit and safety of the inhabitants of said city. It was maintained on the part of those who believed that the municipal court had the right to issue writs of _habeas corpus_ against process issued from the State courts that all the power there was in Illinois she gave to Nauvoo, and that the municipal court had all the power within the limits of the city that the State courts had, and that power was given by the same authority--the legislature. A number of lawyers of more or less prominence in the State professed to hold the same views; but little reliance can be put in the support they bring to the case, since they were seeking political preferment and would, and did, in their interpretations of the powers granted by the charter, favor that side of the controversy most likely to please the citizens of Nauvoo. Governor Ford, too, at the time, gave a tacit approval of the course taken by the municipal court in issuing the writ of _habeas corpus_, though he afterwards became very pronounced in his opposition to the exercise of such powers. It occurred in this way: As soon as Joseph was liberated, Sheriff Reynolds applied to Governor Ford for a posse to retake him, representing that the Prophet had been unlawfully taken out of his hands by the municipal court of Nauvoo. The governor refused to grant the petition. Subsequently the governor of Missouri asked Governor Ford to call out the militia to retake Joseph, but this he also refused to do, and gave as a reason that "no process, officer, or authority of the State had been resisted or interfered with," and recited how the prisoner had been released on _habeas corpus_ by the municipal court of Nauvoo. The governor acted in this instance with perfect knowledge of what had taken place, for the petition and statement of Reynolds were in his possession as were also complete copies of all the documents, which contained the proceedings before the municipal court of Nauvoo; and in addition to these sources of information, the governor had dispatched a trusted, secret agent, a Mr. Brayman, to Nauvoo who investigated the case and reported the result to him.