It is said that history repeats itself; and this in matters of religion as in other things. In the introduction to the first volume of the Church History, the paganization of Christianity was discussed at some length, and when the Lord would again prepare the way for the incoming of the last dispensation of the Gospel—the dispensation of the fullness of times—as part of that preparation, He established a great republic in the New World, the chief corner stone of whose temple of liberty was religious freedom. The Congress of the United States, by express provision of the Constitution, is prohibited from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.[[55]] Similar guarantees of religious freedom are provided for in the constitutions of all the states. The clause in Missouri's constitution on the subject was as follows:
"All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; that no man can be compelled to erect, support or attend any place of worship, or to maintain any minister of the gospel or teacher of religion; that no human authority can control or interfere with the rights of conscience; that no person can ever be hurt, molested or restrained in his religious professions or sentiments, if he do not disturb others in their religious worship: that no person, on account of his religious opinions, can be rendered ineligible to any office of trust or profit under this state; that no preference can ever be given by law to any sect or mode of worship; and that no religious corporation can ever be established in this state."
Under these guarantees of religious liberty, in both state and national constitutions, infidels, Jews, and all sects of the Christian religion lived in unbroken peace. In the colonial history of the country there had been some intolerance and acts of violence practiced by the sects of Christians on one another, but in the main, and especially since the establishment of the republic of the United States, under its present Constitution, there had been absolute religious freedom. But now a strange thing occurred. A youth, yet in his early teens, startled the neighborhood in which he resided with the announcement that he had received a revelation from God: a new dispensation of the Gospel of Christ had been committed to him; he is authorized to found again the very Church of Christ; men are to teach once more by divine authority; and the world is to be made ready for the incoming of the glorious kingdom, whose king shall be the resurrected, glorified Christ; and peace and truth and righteousness are to abound. Strangely enough, notwithstanding all the guarantees of religious freedom in the state and national constitutions, this proclamation is resented by the people, and those who advocate it are persecuted in various ways, until at the last, as set forth in the three volumes of the Church History now published, it culminated in the death and misery of many souls, and the final expulsion of from twelve to fifteen thousand Saints from the state of Missouri, under all the circumstances of cruelty detailed in this history.
Why is this violence done to the principle of religious freedom, a principle that is both the pride and boast of the American people? Why are constitutions and institutions violated in efforts made by the authorities of the sovereign state of Missouri to destroy this religion and this Church of Christ? What is the cause of these Missouri persecutions? In view of the principles already set forth in these pages, the primary cause of these persecutions in Missouri will not be difficult to find. In them, as in the Roman persecutions of the Christians, the cunning and power of Lucifer will be apparent. So long as only apostate forms of Christianity obtained; so long as men adhered to mere forms of godliness and denied the power thereof, so long Lucifer cared not with what devotion they clung to these lifeless forms of religion. He laughed; his kingdom was undiminished; the nations were held in his thraldom. But when the Prophet of the dispensation of the fulness of times announced his revelation; when God again stood revealed once more before a witness; when the divine plan of life and salvation was again communicated to men through an inspired prophet; when the Church of Christ in all its completeness and power was restored to the earth, then it behoved Lucifer to look to his dominions, to strengthen his forces, and to prepare for the final conflict for possession of this world; for now God had taken it in hand to complete His work of redeeming the earth, of saving men, and overthrowing Lucifer and his power so far as this earth is concerned; and hence when Joseph Smith announced his new revelation, the incoming of the dispensation of the fulness of times, Lucifer with all the cunning and power at his command, and setting in motion every force—the fears and jealousies of men, misrepresentation and calumny, hatred of righteousness and truth, in a word, every force that he could summons, every pretext that he could suggest to men of evil disposed minds was employed to destroy the inauguration of that work which was to subdue his power, conquer his dominions, and render men free from his influence. Lucifer's bitterness, then, his hatred, his cunning, his devisements were the cause of the Missouri persecutions. All else was secondary, pretext, his instrumentalities, nothing more.
Retribution.
But what of Missouri? Missouri, who had violated her constitution which guaranteed religious freedom to all who came within her borders! Missouri, whose officers from the Governor down entered into a wicked conspiracy, contrary to all law and righteousness, and drove the Saints from the state! Missouri, who had violated not only her own constitution by becoming a party to a religious persecution, but had also violated the spirit of our times, and outraged the civilization of the nineteenth century—what of Missouri? Did she pay any penalty for her wrong-doing? Are states such entities as may be held to an accounting for breaches of public faith and public morals—constitutional immoralities? Is there within the state a public conscience to which an appeal can be made; and in the event of the public conscience being outraged is there retribution?
I answer these questions in the affirmative; and hold that Missouri paid dearly for the violations of her guarantees of religious freedom, and her lawlessness and her cruelties practiced towards the Latter-day Saints.
I have already referred to the relationship which the state of Missouri sustained to the great question of slavery. By the political compromise which bore her name, Missouri became a "cape of slavery thrust into free territory." Except for the state of Missouri alone, her southern boundary line was to mark the furthermost point northward beyond which slavery must not be extended into the territory of the United States. In 1854, however, the Missouri compromise was practically overthrown by the introduction into Congress of the "Kansas-Nebraska Act," by Stephen A. Douglas, United States senator from Illinois. This act provided for the organization of two new territories from the Louisiana purchase, west of Missouri and Iowa. The act proposed that the new territories should be open to slavery, if their inhabitants desired it. This left the question of slavery in the status it occupied previous to the Missouri Compromise, and left the people in the prospective states to determine for themselves whether slavery should or should not prevail in their state. This opened again the slavery question, and there was begun that agitation which finally resulted in the great American Civil War.
As soon as it became apparent that the people of new territories were to determine for themselves the question of slavery, very naturally each party began a struggle for possession of the new territory according as its sentiments or interests dictated. The struggle began by the abolition party of the north organizing "Emigrant Aid Societies," and sending emigrants of their own faith into Kansas. The slave holders of Missouri also sent settlers representing their faith and interests into the new territory in the hope of bringing it into the Union as a slave state. This brought on a border warfare in which the settlements of western Missouri and eastern Kansas alternately suffered from the raids and counter raids of the respective parties through some six years before the outbreak of the Civil War. As to which were the more lawless or cruel, the fanatical abolitionists or the pro-slavery party, the "jayhawkers," as the organized bands of ruffians of the former party were called, or the "bushwhackers," as the similarly organized bands of the pro-slavery men were called, is not a question necessary for me to discuss here. Both held the laws in contempt, and vied with each other in committing atrocities. The western counties of Missouri, where the Latter-day Saints had suffered so cruelly at the hands of people of those counties some eighteen or twenty years before, were in this border warfare laid desolate, and all the hardships the Missourians had inflicted upon the Saints were now visited upon their heads, only more abundantly.
Speaking of the situation in Missouri in 1861, the out-going Governor, Robert M. Stewart, in his address to the legislature, and referring to Missouri and her right to be heard on the slavery question, said: