My mind will eternally revolt at every suggestion of that kind. * * * My safety is with you if you want to have it so. * * * If I go to the pine country, you shall go along with me, and the children; and if you and the children go not with me, I don't go. I do not wish to exile myself for the sake of my own life. I would rather fight it out. It is for your sakes therefore that I would do such a thing.
This plan, however, was abandoned.
Footnotes
[1]. It was then supposed that Boggs was dead. It was not until several days later that the news of his recovery reached Nauvoo or Quincy.
[2]. I say "questionable" as representing the views of the Prophet's friends. As a matter of fact, in my judgment, there could be no question about the municipal court having no such power. And if the letter of the Nauvoo charter justified the idea that the municipal court possessed any such power to interrupt the process of the State and United States courts, it was a manifest defect in the wording of the charter, a solecism that would render that part of the charter void.
[3]. Some years before this, in December, 1835, Joseph said of Hyrum: "I could pray in my heart that all men were like my brother Hyrum, who possesses the mildness of a lamb, and the integrity of a Job, and in short, the meekness and humility of Christ; and I love him with that love that is stronger than death, for I never had occasion to rebuke him, nor he me."—Mill. Star, vol. VX. P. 521.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE PROPHET'S TRIAL AT SPRINGFIELD—MISSOURI AGAIN THWARTED.
It appears that Joseph had resolved to submit no longer to the injustice he had suffered from the hands of the people of Missouri. It was rumored that the officers on leaving Nauvoo, breathed out threats of returning with sufficient force to search every house in the city and vicinity; and Sheriff Ford, the agent of Missouri, threatened to bring a mob against the Mormons, if necessary to arrest the Prophet. Hearing these rumors, Joseph exchanged several letters with William Law, who had been recently elected major-general of the Legion, vice John C. Bennett, cashiered; in which he admonished him to have all things in readiness to protect the people in their rights, and not for one moment to submit to the outrages that were threatened.
"You will see, therefore," said he, in a letter written on the fourteenth of August, to Law, "that the peace of the city of Nauvoo is kept, let who will, endeavor to disturb it. You will also see that whenever any mob force or violence is used, on any citizen thereof, or that belongeth thereunto, you will see that force or violence is immediately dispersed, and brought to punishment, or meet it, and contest it at the point of the sword, with firm, undaunted and unyielding valor; and let them know that the spirit of old Seventy-six, and of George Washington yet lives, and is contained in the bosoms and blood of the children of the fathers thereof. If there are any threats in the city, let legal steps be taken against them; and let no man, woman or child be intimidated, nor suffer it to be done. Nevertheless, as I said in the first place, we will take every measure that lays in our power, and make every sacrifice that God or man could require at our hands, to preserve the peace and safety of the people without collision."