CHAPTER XXVII.
PEACEFUL EXODUS FROM CLAY COUNTY.
Meantime the presence of the saints in Clay County began to be a cause of uneasiness among the non-"Mormons" of the community. The leading citizens of the county assembled at the courthouse in Liberty on the twenty-ninth of June, 1836, to consider the difficulties threatening the people of Clay County in consequence of the presence of the "Mormons." After the usual organization at such meetings, the committee on resolutions reported a document that briefly stated the circumstances under which the "Mormons" flocked into Clay County; without money; without property; without food for their wives and children; and, like Noah's dove, without a resting place for their feet; and how the people of Clay County in face of the thousand reports accusing them of every crime known to the laws of the country, had treated them with toleration, and often with peculiar kindness. The document referred to the statements of the leading brethren who had said they did not regard Clay County as their permanent home, but merely as a temporary asylum which they would promptly leave whenever a respectable portion of the citizens of the county should request it; and now the best interest of the county demanded the fulfillment of that pledge.
The reasons why the saints had become objectionable as permanent citizens to many of the people of Clay County were stated to be:
1. Their religious tenets were so different from the present churches of the age, that this always had and always would excite deep prejudice against them in any populous country where they might locate.
2. They were eastern men whose manners, habits, customs, and even dialect were essentially different from the Missourians.
3. They were non-slave holders, and opposed to slavery, which excited deep and abiding prejudices in a community which tolerated and protected slavery.
4. Common report had it that they kept up a constant communication with the Indian tribes on the frontier; and declared from the pulpit that the Indians were a part of God's chosen people, destined by heaven to inherit with them the land of Missouri.
"We do not vouch for the correctness of these statements," said the committee in their report, "but whether they are true or false, their effect has been the same in exciting our community."