[Footnote B: Evening and Morning Star, p. 351.]
I do not doubt the sincerity of Governor Dunklin in giving this counsel to the saints, and under ordinary circumstances to seek redress at the hands of the civil authorities would be the proper thing to do. But in this case the officers of the law had been the head and front of this high-handed and infamous proceeding. In proof of this statement I give the names and offices held by those who were most active in the lawless proceeding related:
S. D. LUCAS, colonel, and judge of the county court;
SAMUEL C. OWENS, county clerk;
RUSSEL HICKS, deputy clerk;
JOHN SMITH, justice of the peace;
SAMUEL WESTON, justice of the peace;
WILLIAM BROWN, constable;
THOMAS PITCHER, deputy constable.
Besides these there were Indian agents, postmasters, doctors, lawyers and merchants.
These were the men who had despoiled the saints—these the ones, in connection with the secret assistance of the lieutenant governor of the State, LILBURN W. BOGGS, who inflamed the minds of the ignorant frontier settlers against an innocent people, and encouraged the vicious to maltreat the virtuous. These were the men who on the 23rd of July of the same year had said:
"We will rid Jackson County of the 'Mormons' peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must. If they will not go without, we will whip and kill the men; we will destroy the lives of their children, and ravish their women!" And these were the men—the officers of justice, to whom the "Mormons" were to appeal for a redress of grievances! To say the least, does it not smack of "going to law with the devil, when court is to convene in hell?" Surely it was only a forlorn hope the saints could entertain of being redressed for their wrongs by appealing to the very parties who inflicted those wrongs upon them; and yet it was about the only course open to the governor to suggest at that time. Being willing to magnify the law, the saints acted upon the governor's advice. For this purpose they engaged the services of four lawyers from Clay County, then attending court at Independence, viz.: Messrs. Wood, Reese, Doniphan and Atchison. These gentlemen engaged to plant all the suits the saints might wish to present before the courts, and agreed to attend to them jointly throughout for one thousand dollars. W. W. Phelps and Bishop Partridge gave their notes for that sum, endorsed by Gilbert & Whitney.
No sooner did the mob witness these movements than they began to prepare for further hostilities. The red right hand of persecution was again armed to plague the saints.
CHAPTER IX.
AGAIN THE STORM.