The Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet

by George Q. Cannon

For the greater general prosperity, the Saints in the various parts of Caldwell County now organized under the Prophet's direction into agricultural companies, to enclose their lands into large fields. Joseph showed them how this plan would be economical and add facility to the tilling of the soil. So readily could this inspired man turn from the tragic tribulations of life to render to his brethren calm assistance in their daily labors!

On the 28th day of August, 1838, Adam Black made oath before a justice of the peace of Daviess County that he had been threatened with instant death by an armed force of more than one hundred and fifty men on the 8th day of August. He named several of the brethren whom he charged with aiding and abetting in the perpetration of the offense, and this was Black's revenge upon the Prophet who had detected him in an attempt to steal back the land which he had sold to the Saints.

The agitation in Daviess County and the perjuries of the foiled mobbers aroused Lilburn W. Boggs, of memory already infamous, who was now governor of the state; and he sent letters to General David R. Atchison and six other generals, ordering them to raise immediately within the limits of their divisions four hundred mounted men armed and equipped as infantry or riflemen. This act, which was ostensibly for the protection of good order, accomplished its wicked purpose. It aroused intense excitement and inflamed the desire of the mob to find an excuse for an attack upon the Saints, since they knew that the militia would be composed of men who hated the "Mormons" and would be willing to plunder them on the first opportunity.

Joseph saw the tendency of events and wrote at this time in his journal as follows:

There is great excitement at present among the Missourians, seeking if possible an occasion against us. They are continually chaffing us, and provoking us to anger if possible; one sign of threatening following 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. We have been driven from time to time, and that without cause, and been smitten again and again, and that without provocation, until we have proved the world with kindness, and the world proved us that we have no design against any man or set of men; that we injure no man; that we are peaceable with all men; minding our own business, and our own business only. We have suffered our rights and our liberties to be taken from us; we have not avenged ourselves for those wrongs. We have appealed to magistrates, to sheriffs, judges, to governors and to the President of the United States, all in vain. Yet we have yielded peaceably to all these things. We have not complained at the great God. We murmured not; but peaceably left all, and retired into the back country, in the broad wild prairie, in the barren and desolate plains, and there commenced anew. We made the desolate places to bud and blossom as the rose; and now the fiend-like race are disposed to give us no rest.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

JOSEPH VOLUNTEERS FOR TRIAL AND LYMAN WIGHT FOLLOWS—BEGINNING THE STUDY OF LAW—THE TRIAL BEFORE A COWARD JUDGE, WITH A PERJURED WITNESS—MILITIA CALLED OUT, BUT THE MOB PRACTICALLY DEFIES IT—BOGGS CONTINUES THE WORK OF OPPRESSION.

Angered at the frustration of their plots of force and legal treachery against the Prophet, the mob continued to spread reports in August and September of 1838, that he was defying the law and refusing submission to process of court. This perjured tale received additional credence among the uninformed from the fact that the Daviess County sheriff had failed to arrest him; though, as all should have known, this failure was no fault of Joseph. But the falsehood was bringing renewed menace upon the Saints. Upper Missouri erupted a lava stream of bad men into Daviess, Carroll, Saline and Caldwell Counties. Something must be done to turn aside the overflow or it would sweep over all the dwelling places of the Saints.

To stay the fiery river of hate, the Prophet offered himself as a sacrifice. On the fourth day of September, 1838, he volunteered, through his lawyers, Generals Atchison and Doniphan, to be tried before Judge King, in Daviess County. Lyman Wight, who had been charged with him, followed his example.

It was characteristic of this industrious Prophet, that on the day when he tendered his liberty and his life as a price for the physical and political redemption of his brethren, he began the methodical study of law. The anxiety natural to his position was unfelt. He had looked so often upon danger that its face was no longer terrible. And he knew that such learning as he should ever acquire must be gained in the midst of turmoil. He wanted to know the science upon which statutes were based, and to become learned in the knowledge of his country's constitution and enactments that he might the better minister temporal salvation to his fellowmen, and the hour when prison and even murder menaced him was as propitious as any he might ever see.