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
As soon as Boggs recovered sufficiently, he went before Samuel Weston,
a justice of the peace at Independence, and one of the characters
that some of my readers of "The Missouri Persecutions" will remember
as taking part in driving the Saints from their homes in Jackson
County--before him Boggs made affidavit that he had reason to believe,
from evidence and information then in his possession, that "Joseph
Smith, the Mormon Prophet, was accessory before the fact of the
intended murder," and therefore applied to Thomas Reynolds, governor
of Missouri, to make a demand on the governor of Illinois, to deliver
Joseph Smith up to some person authorized to receive him on behalf of
the State of Missouri, to be dealt with according to law.
Governor Reynolds promptly granted the request and made the demand on
the governor of Illinois for the surrender of Joseph to one E. R. Ford,
who was appointed the agent of Missouri to receive him. In making the
demand, Governor Reynolds said:
Whereas it appears * * * that one Joseph Smith is a fugitive from
justice, charged with being accessory before the fact, to an
assault with intent to kill, made by one O. P. Rockwell, on Lilburn
W. Boggs, in this State [Missouri]; and is represented to the
executive department of this State as having fled to the State of
Illinois; Now, therefore, I, * * * do by these presents demand the
surrender and delivering of the said Joseph Smith, etc., etc.
We have given this extract for the requisition _verbatim_, because, in
the first place, the affidavit of Boggs, upon the strength of which
Governor Reynolds made his demand for the surrender of Joseph Smith,
does not claim that he was a fugitive from justice, or that he had
fled from the State of Missouri to Illinois; but on the contrary, the
affidavit says that he was a "citizen or resident of Illinois," hence
the statement of fact in the affidavit was not sufficient to justify
the demand for Joseph Smith to be surrendered to Missouri. A person
resident in a State may not be delivered up to the authorities of
another State for alleged offenses, unless it is represented that he
has fled from the State making the demand for his surrender, to escape
from justice. This charge was not made by Boggs in his affidavit,
which was Governor Reynolds' only authority for making the demand.
But in what Boggs failed, Governor Reynolds made up; and upon his own
responsibility, charged in his demand on Illinois that Joseph Smith was
"a fugitive from justice," and had "fled to Illinois;" a statement that
was at once untrue, and wholly gratuitous on the part of the executive
of Missouri, and proves him to be a willing persecutor of the innocent.
Secondly, it was this assumption on the part of Reynolds that did much
towards making the demand on Illinois void. But more of this anon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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