The Missourians made much of, and attached a sinister meaning to the following expression in one of the revelations to the Saints: "The land of Zion shall not be obtained but by purchase or by blood, otherwise there is none inheritance for you."[[30]] This the Missourians pretended to regard as a threat to take possession of their land by armed conquest. Had they read the context of the passage they would have known how entirely groundless were their fears, if indeed they had any fears, for I am convinced that all their expressed apprehensions on this head were mere pretense. The passage and its context are: "Wherefore the land of Zion shall not be obtained but by purchase or by blood, otherwise there is none inheritance for you. And if by purchase, behold you are blessed; and if by blood, as you are forbidden to shed blood, lo, your enemies are upon you, and ye shall be scourged from city to city, and from synagogue to synagogue and but few shall stand to receive an inheritance."[[31]]
Clearly this is a warning to the Saints, not a threat to the Missourians. If the Saints obtained the land by purchase they were blessed. If by blood—since the Saints were forbidden to shed blood, lo their enemies would be upon them and they would be driven from city to city—not the Missourians, but the Saints. In consequence of the agitation of this matter by the foolish, the following passage occurred in The Evening and Morning Star for July, 1833, addressed to the churches scattered abroad: "To suppose that we can come up here and take possession of this land by the shedding of blood, would be setting at nought the law of the glorious Gospel, and also the word of our great Redeemer. And to suppose that we can take possession of this country without making regular purchases of the same according to the laws of our nation, would be reproaching this great Republic, in which the most of us were born, and under whose auspices we all have protection."[[32]]
Of this the Missourians said that whether they were to be dispossessed of their lands "by the hand of the destroying angel, the judgments of God, or the arm of power, they [the Saints] are not fully agreed among themselves. Some recent remarks in the Evening and Morning Star, their organ in this place, by their tendency to moderate such hopes, and repress such desires, show plainly that many of this deluded and infatuated people have been taught to believe that our lands were to be won from us by the sword!"[[33]]
Thus the very efforts of the Church to correct the misconceptions and silence the utterances of the over-zealous and foolish members, were made to contribute as proof that the Saints contemplated the very armed conquest of the land which they disclaimed. History, however, will do the Saints justice, and it will say, and now says, that neither their general principles, nor the special commandments under which they moved into the land of Zion, nor any act of theirs warranted the least suspicion that they at any time contemplated taking possession of the land by force, or in any other manner whatsoever except by purchase and possession under the laws of the state of Missouri and the United States. And while history will do them this justice it will at the same time say that the "fears" of the Missourians on this head were simulated; that to the foolish boasts of a few ignorant persons they attached an undue importance because it happened to give a coloring to their pretended fears in the eyes of those at a distance who had no opportunity to learn the truth, and tended to prejudice the public mind against the Saints, and thus served the purpose of their enemies.
In like manner there may have been some talk among the same class of people—the ignorant and over-zealous Church members—respecting the Indians, and their future union with the Saints in redeeming the land of Zion; a circumstance which led the good people of Clay county and Governor Dunklin, to refer to the charge of the Saints holding illicit communication with the Indians, designing to employ them in taking possession of the land of Zion. Of this charge also history will and does vindicate the Saints. It will, and does say, that they disclaimed holding any such communication; that neither their general principles nor any special commandment from God, and particularly that no action of theirs warranted any suspicion on the subject, much less justified the charge of such a diabolical purpose.
After the Saints withdrew from Clay county and at the suggestion of her citizens—including some of the most influential men in western Missouri, some of whom afterwards attained national reputations—located in the sparsely settled counties of Caldwell and Daviess, the situation became somewhat changed. For two years the work of purchasing lands, locating settlements, opening farms, establishing merchantile houses, and preparing for manufacturing and commercial enterprises went steadily on. In Caldwell and adjoining counties, by the autumn of 1838, the Saints had opened two thousand farms, and paid to the general government three hundred and eighteen thousand dollars for land, which at the minimum price for government land would give them over two hundred and fifty thousand acres.[[34]] One hundred and fifty houses had been erected in Far West; there were four dry goods stores, three family groceries, half a dozen blacksmith's shops, and two hotels.[[35]] The excavation for a temple 120 by 80 feet had been made, and a large commodious schoolhouse had been erected on the public square.[[36]] The town of Adam-Ondi-Ahman was also making rapid progress.
By this time the Prophet Joseph and other leading men of the Church had left Kirtland and located with the Saints in Missouri, and everything looked propitious for the permanent establishment of the Saints in the borders of Zion. The Saints had now been driven bodily from Jackson county; and their homes, store houses and printing establishment had been destroyed. The courts of Missouri had proven powerless to restore to them their homes, their lands and other property. The executive of the state confessed himself powerless to return them to their possessions in Jackson county, and maintain them there against the wishes of the people of that county. Indeed, Governor Dunklin had weakly given up the vindication of the outraged laws of the state, as we have seen, saying that whether the charges of their enemies or the denials by the Saints were true he could not tell; their neighbors seemed to believe them true, and whether true or false the consequences would be the same, unless the Saints by their conduct and argument could convince the Missourians of their innocence. "If you cannot do this," said the governor, "all I can say to you is that in this Republic the vox populi is the vox Dei!" The Saints at some considerable sacrifice had withdrawn from Clay county at the request of her citizens, in the interests of peace, and had settled in the new counties of Caldwell and Daviess, where settlers were few and the country less desirable than in Jackson and Clay counties. In doing these things they had repeatedly sacrificed their rights as citizens, both of Missouri and of the United States. Smitten on the one cheek—speaking figuratively—they had turned the other; sued at the law for their coat, they had given their cloak also; compelled to go one mile with their enemy, they had gone with him twain. After doing all this for the sake of peace and the friendship of the Missourians, when the Saints saw forming again those elements which threatened their peace; when old enemies appeared upon the new scene of the Saints' activities, and openly threatened their peace and boasted that they would again prosper by despoiling them of their new possessions; when they saw the red right hand of a relentless persecution arming again to plague them, it is small wonder if righteous anger flushed their cheek, made bright their eyes with indignation and led them instinctively to form the resolution that they would submit no more to such acts of despoliation, injustice and outrage.
It was this sense of outraged justice and humanity which led to the deliverance of a very noted "Oration" by Sidney Rigdon at Far West, on the Fourth of July, 1838, in the course of which there was expressed a strong determination to no more submit quietly to mob violence, and acts of pillage. At this distance of time from that occasion, and balancing against the heated utterances of the speaker the subsequent uses made of them to incite the public mind to that series of acts which culminated in the expulsion of the Saints from the state, we say those utterances were untimely, extreme, and unwise. So indeed they were. The speaker seems to have thrown discretion to the winds, and in the fervor of his rhetoric made threats of retaliation on behalf of the Saints, if assailed, that went beyond all bounds of reason and humanity, and proved a very damaging as also a very potent factor against the Saints in the subsequent movements of their enemies against them.
But while this oratorical outburst against injustice was unwise, it was a very natural thing. The marvel is not that it came at the time it did, but that it did not come earlier, more vehemently, and that some of the things it threatened were not effectively carried out. What the Prophet thought, and how he felt respecting the repeated acts of injustice heaped upon himself and the Saints in Missouri; how he felt and what he proposed for the future is made clear in his journal entry for September 1st, 1838; and, fortunately, is more temperately expressed than in the oration of July the fourth. He said:
"There is great excitement at present among the Missourians, who are seeking if possible an occasion against us. They are continually chafing us, and provoking us to anger if possible, one sign of threatening after another, but we do not fear them, for the Lord God, the Eternal Father is our God, and Jesus the Mediator is our Savior, and in the great I Am is our strength and confidence.