Monday, 18.—The frost of last night was so severe as to form ice inside the houses.
I stayed at home to recite German with Brother Neibaur.
Tuesday, 19.—Met in council in the assembly room. Elder Samuel Bent, Uriah Brown, Samuel James, John D. Parker, Orrin P. Rockwell, Sidney Rigdon, William Marks, and Orson Spencer met in council, in addition to the former names.
In the afternoon, heavy, driving rain. Northwest wind. Dull, cold day.
Wednesday, 20.—Severely cold northwest wind, with a snow and hail storm until ten a.m. Afternoon dull. West wind.
Spent the morning and afternoon in the assembly room, studying the languages.
Col. Copeland and the Vice-Presidency.
Elder Woodruff read me a letter which he had written to Colonel Solomon Copeland concerning his nomination to be a candidate for the Vice-President of the United States.
The Illinois Springfield Register has the following:—
GENERAL JOSEPH SMITH A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT.
It appears by the Nauvoo papers that the Mormon Prophet is actually a candidate for the presidency. He has sent us his pamphlet, containing an extract of his principles, from which it appears that he is up to the hub for a United States bank and a protective tariff. On these points he is much more explicit than Mr. Clay, who will not say that he is for a bank, but talks all the time of restoring a national currency. Nor will Mr. Clay say what kind of a tariff he is for. He says to the south that he has not sufficiently examined the present tariff, but thinks very likely it could be amended.
General Smith possesses no such fastidious delicacy. He comes right out in favor of a bank and a tariff, taking the true Whig ground, and ought to be regarded as the real Whig candidate for President, until Mr. Clay can so far recover from his shuffling and dodging as to declare his sentiments like a man.
At present we can form no opinion of Clay's principles, except as they are professed by his friends in these parts.
Clay himself has adopted the notion which was once entertained by an eminent grammarian, who denied that language was intended as a means to express one's ideas, but insisted that it was invented on purpose to aid us in concealing them.