That made gold and silver alone legal tender within the city;
That declared Joseph Smith exempt from arrest on requisitions from Missouri founded upon the old difficulties in that state, and providing that persons making an attempt to arrest him might be taken with or without process, imprisoned for life, and might not be pardoned by the governor without consent of the mayor;[[12]]
That authorized the city council, marshal, constables and city watch to require all strangers entering the city or already tarrying there to give their names, former residence and for what intent they were tarrying in the city, and answer such other questions as the officers respectively deemed proper to ask; refusal to give the desired information, or giving false names or information subjected them to the same penalties as "vagrants and disorderly persons;"
That further authorized and required the above named officers to "hail and take all persons found strolling about the city at night after nine o'clock and before sunrise, and to confine them in ward for trial under the ordinances concerning vagrants and disorderly persons, unless they could give a good account of themselves for being out after nine o'clock;"
That further authorized and required the aforesaid officers to enter all hotels or houses of public entertainment, and such other habitations as they may judge proper, and require the inmates to give immediate information of all persons residing in said hotel or habitation, and their business, occupation or movements, under penalty of forfeiture of license, if a public house, and they and the transient persons subject to the penalties visited upon vagrants for failure to give the information required, or giving false information; while the officer who should "refuse or neglect to perform the above duties should be fined $100, and be broke of his office;"
That forbade the search and seizure of person or property by foreign process [i. e. other process than that issuing from the city's authority] within the city of Nauvoo, leading to the widespread belief that the design of said ordinance was "to hinder the execution of the statutes of Illinois" within said city;[[13]]
That asked the general government to ratify the Nauvoo Charter, and in addition constitute the city a territorial government, by granting "all rights, powers, privileges and immunities belonging to territories and not repugnant to the constitution of the United States," with power granted to the mayor to call to his aid a sufficient number of the United States troops, in connection with the Nauvoo Legion, to repel the invasion of mobs, keep the public peace, protect the innocent from lawless banditti; the United States officers to obey the requisition of this ordinance; and the Nauvoo Legion, when in service quelling mobs and preserving the public peace, to be under the same regulations, rules and laws of pay as the troops of the United States; the territorial privileges to continue until the "state of Missouri restores to those exiled citizens [the Latter-day Saints] the lands, rights, privileges, property, and damages for all losses" they had sustained by being banished from that commonwealth;[[14]]
And, finally, that asserted the right of the municipal court to arrest process issued by the state's circuit courts, and even by the United States courts, by habeas corpus proceedings; and insisted, not only upon the right to pass judgment upon the sufficiency of writs under which arrests were made, but upon the right also to go behind the writs and try the cases upon their merits.
X. Subserviency of Politicians and Lawyers.
Blame for this political subserviency and misleading political and legal advice, may not be charged on one party more than another. If Cyrus Walker, a Whig candidate for congress, assented to the doctrine as understood by Nauvoo's leading men, that the municipal court of Nauvoo held the power under habeas corpus procedure to arrest execution of process of the state courts, as he did,[[15]] so, too, did Joseph P. Hoge, Democratic nominee; and even Governor Ford, when requested to call out the militia to rearrest Joseph Smith after he had been liberated from the custody of Sheriff Reynolds, agent of Missouri, under habeas corpus proceedings, took refuge behind the habeas corpus proceedings of the Municipal Court at Nauvoo. In that case the court not only inquired into the sufficiency of the writ of requisition from Missouri, and granted by Governor Ford himself, but also went back of the writ and tried the case exparte on its merits, and finally discharged the prisoner, both "for want of substance in the warrant, * * * as well as upon the merits of the case."[[16]] When answering the request of Missouri to rearrest Joseph Smith, Governor Ford, I say, at least took refuge behind the aforesaid proceedings of the Municipal Court to the extent of saying, in the face of that procedure, that "no process, officer or authority of Illinois had been resisted or interfered with,"[[17]] and therefore refused to call out the militia to rearrest President Smith.