The Rise and Fall of NauvooRoberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
History
The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Latter Day Saints -- Illinois -- Nauvoo; Nauvoo (Ill.) -- History
I will give you a parable. A certain lord had a vineyard in a
goodly land, which men labored in at their pleasure. A few meek
men also went and purchased with money from some of these chief
men that labored at pleasure a portion of land in the vineyard,
at a very remote part of it, and began to improve it, and to eat
and drink the fruit thereof,--when some vile persons, who regarded
not man, neither feared the lord of the vineyard, rose up suddenly
and robbed these meek men, and drove them from their possessions,
killing many.
This barbarous act made no small stir among the men in the
vineyard; and all that portion who were attached to that part of
the vineyard where the men were robbed rose up in grand council,
with their chief man, who had firstly ordered the deed to be done,
and made a covenant not to pay for the cruel deed, but to keep the
spoil, and never let those meek men set their feet on that soil
again, neither recompense them for it.
Now, these meek men, in their distress, wisely sought redress
of those wicked men in every possible manner, and got none.
They then supplicated the chief men, who held the vineyard at
pleasure, and who had the power to sell and defend it, for redress
and redemption; and those men, loving the fame and favor of
the multitude more than the glory of the lord of the vineyard,
answered--"Your cause is just, but we can do nothing for you,
because we have no power."
Now, when the lord of the vineyard saw that virtue innocence
was not regarded, and his vineyard occupied by wicked men, he
sent men and took the possession of it to himself, and destroyed
these unfaithful servants, and appointed them their portion among
hypocrites.
And let me say that all men who say that Congress has no power to
restore and defend the rights of her citizens have not the love of
the truth abiding in them. Congress has power to protect the nation
against foreign invasion and internal broil; and whenever that
body passes an act to maintain right with any power, or to restore
right to any portion of her citizens, it is the SUPREME LAW OF THE
LAND; and should a State refuse submission, that State is guilty of
_insurrection or rebellion_, and the President has as much power
to repel it as Washington had to march against the "whisky boys
at Pittsburg," or General Jackson had to send an armed force to
suppress the rebellion of South Carolina.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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