Politics were not eliminated from the causes of trouble by Smith's death. Not only was 1844 a presidential year, but the citizens of Hancock County were to vote for a member of Congress, two members of the legislature, and a sheriff. Governor Ford urgently advised the Mormons not to vote at all, as a measure of peace; but political feeling ran very high, and the Democrats got the Mormon vote for President, and with the same assistance elected as sheriff General Deming, the officer left by Governor Ford in command of the militia at Carthage when the Smiths were killed, as well as two members of the legislature who had voted against the repeal of the Nauvoo city charter.
The tone of the Mormons toward their non-Mormon neighbors seemed to become more defiant at this time than ever. The repeal of the Nauvoo charter, in January, 1845, unloosened their tongues. Their newspaper, the Neighbor, declared that the legislature "had no more right to repeal the charter than the United States would have to abrogate and make void the constitution of the state, or than Great Britain would have to abolish the constitution of the United States—and the man that says differently is a coward, a traitor to his own rights, and a tyrant; no odds what Blackstone, Kent or Story may have written to make themselves and their names popular, to the contrary."
The Neighbor, in the same article, thus defined its view of the situation, after the repeal:—
"Nor is it less legal for an insulted individual or community to resist oppression. For this reason, until the blood of Joseph and Hyrum Smith has been atoned for by hanging, shooting or slaying in some manner every person engaged in that cowardly, mean assassination, no Latter-Day Saint should give himself up to the law; for the presumption is that they wilt murder him in the same manner.... Neither should civil process come into Nauvoo till the United States by a vigorous course, causes the State of Missouri and the State of Illinois to redress every man that has suffered the loss of lands, goods or anything else by expulsion. ... If any man is bound to maintain the law, it is for the benefit he may derive from it.... Well, our charter is repealed; the murderers of the Smiths are running at large, and if the Mormons should wish to imitate their forefathers and fulfil the Scriptures by making it 'hard to kick against the pricks' by wearing cast steel pikes about four or five inches long in their boots and shoes to kick with, WHAT'S THE HARM?" Such utterances, which found imitation in the addresses of the leaders, and were echoed in the columns of Pratt's Prophet in New York, made it easy for their hostile neighbors to believe that the Mormons considered themselves beyond the reach of any law but their own. Some daring murders committed across the river in Iowa in the spring of 1845 afforded confirmation to the non-Mormons of their belief in church-instigated crimes of this character, and in the existence and activity of the Danite organization. The Mormon authorities had denied that there were organized Danites at Nauvoo, but the weight of testimony is against the denial. Gregg, a resident of the locality when the Mormons dwelt there, gives a fair idea of the accepted view of the Danites at that time:—
"They were bound together with oaths of the most solemn character, and the punishment of traitors to the order was death. John A. Murrell's Band of Pirates, who flourished at one time near Jackson, Tennessee, and up and down the Mississippi River above New Orleans, was never so terrible as the Danite Band, for the latter was a powerful organization, and was above the law. The band made threats, and they were not idle threats. They went about on horseback, under cover of darkness, disguised in long white robes with red girdles. Their faces were covered with masks to conceal their identity."*
* "History of Hancock County." See also "Sketches and Anecdotes
of the Old Settlers," p. 34.
Phineas Wilcox, a young man of good reputation, went to Nauvoo on September 16, 1845, to get some wheat ground, and while there disappeared completely. The inquiry made concerning him led his friends to believe that he was suspected of being a Gentile spy, and was quietly put out of the way.*
* See Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 158-159, for accounts of
methods of disposing of objectionable persons at Nauvoo.
William Smith, the prophet's brother, contributed to the testimony against the Mormon leaders. Returning from the East, where he had been living for three years when Joseph was killed, he was warmly welcomed by the Mormon press, and elevated to the position of Patriarch, and, as such, issued a sort of advertisement of his patriarchal wares in the Times and Seasons* and Neighbor, inviting those in want of blessings to call at his residence. William was not a man of tact, and it required but a little time for him to arouse the jealousy of the leaders, the result of which was a notice in the Times and Seasons of November 1, 1845, that he had been "cut off and left in the hands of God." But William was not a man to remain quiet even in such a retreat, and he soon afterward issued to the Saints throughout the world "a proclamation and faithful warning," which filled eight and a half columns of the Warsaw Signal of October 29, 1845, in which, "in all meekness of spirit, and without anger or malice" (William possessed most of the family traits), he accused Young of instigating murders, and spoke of him in this way:—
* Vol. VI, p. 904.