Mormon History
Legislative Debate Over Nauvoo Charters - 1845
Alton Telegraph & Democratic Review – January 25, 1845
Illinois Legislature.
FROM THE JUNIOR EDITOR.
______
Springfield, Jan.
20?, 1845.
For several afternoons past, and to-day, the
House has been occupied in the discussion of the Senate bill, providing for the
repeal of the Mormon charters. Great interest has been exhibited during the
progress of this debate; and the galleries of the Hall have been crowded to
suffocation, including among the mass a large number of ladies. Very able
speeches have been made by Messrs. Benedict, Yates, Morrison, and Boyakin, in
favor of repeal; while the most miserable Mormon slang has been indulged in, by
Mr. Babbitt, the Mormon, and Messrs. Loft and Ross, in efforts to clothe the
Mormons with just enough power in the nature of a charter, to allow them to
continue their outrages upon the old citizens of Hancock, and the surrounding
counties. During the able speech made by Mr. Benedict, he read, by permission of
Mr. Babbitt, the Mormon representative, an official communication from the
"Council of Twelve," to Babbitt, and which Babbitt had laid before the committee
of Banks and Corporations, to influence, if not intimidate, their action upon
the Senate bill repealing their charters. From this communication, a copy of
which I have procured, I take the following extracts as evidence of their
disposition to lord it over not only the people but the Legislature of the
State. After detailing numerous blessings as a people they have showered
upon Illinois, since their residence among us, and discussing to their
satisfaction the unconstititionality of any act of the Legislature repealing
their charters, the "Council of the Twelve" thus discourse:
"And the sin be upon their own heads." (the members of the Legislature) "and the
heads of their abettors, if they will do it. The Lord is our light, whom shall
we fear? Therefore let us be as bold and steadfast as Daniel; peradventure the
fury of the lions will be stayed until their fangs rest upon our ungodly
enemies! Should the Legislature repeal our charters, we shall be obliged in
self-defense to spread the details of our unprecendeted wrongs to the
extremities of the nation and the world, and then into the ears of the Lord of
Saboath. But we will not believe that they will do it. The injustice, cruelty
and barbarity of such an act, is too appaling for us to entertain such a thought
concerning them. Surely, before they take such a step, they will wipe away the
murdered blood that cleaves to the violated faith of the State! * * * *
What more could a bloody mob ask of a State, then they will have done when they
take away our charters. Oh Illinois! art thou such a Nero or Caligula!! Oh
Brutus! it it thou, that friend that gave us hearty welcome and liberal
charters!! So changed. Oh blush at the thought! From the very day of such an
act let no chaplain invoke the benignity of the Heavens upon you henceforth. Let
the day itself be blotted from your State journals, as a day of delirium and
insanity, when the broad current of reason, humanity, and justice, were stayed
in their natural channels. But if thou wilt do the unnatural deed to thy fond
and loyal child, and still claim the attributes of humanity and justice, then
rest assured, as the Lord God of Israel sits upon his eternal throne, the
GALLOWS PREPARED FOR MORDECAI SHALL ONE DAY BY THY OWN!!"
Such is the insolent language of a body of Mormons to the Representatives of a
free people. Threatening them, that if they repeal the charters, under which
they have so flagrantly abused their powers, that those members who thus vote to
repeal them, "the gallows prepared for Mordecai shall one day be their own."
This celebrated production of the "Council of Twelve," closes with the wholesome
admonition to the Mormon Representative:
"Now, Brother Babbitt, the house of Israel have made you their watchman!
therefore give the trump a certain sound." (What that "certain sound" is,
the Council of Twelve do not explain.) "Fear not them that can kill the body
only, but rather fear Him that can cast both soul and body into hell! Dear
Brother, see to it that thy skirts are [clean]. And we are persuaded better
things of you, though we thus write. Therefore, let us have a whole, unaltered
charter."
The debate will be continued on Monday afternoon -- Mr. Manning of Knox, being
entitled to the floor, who will advocate Mormonism -- and how much longer no
human foresight can predict, as there are some fifteen or twenty members, that
are pregnant with speeches, and must be delivered. The committee on Public
Accounts and Expenditures, have claims before them growing out of the late
Mormon difficulties amounting already upwards to twenty-four thousand dollars,
notwithstanding the assertion of honest! Tom Ford, in his special message
to the Legislature, that the amount was some eight or nine thousand
dollars. If the repeal of these charters is secured through the House, the
country will be indebted entirely to the independence of the Southern Democrats,
who thus far have refused to be governed by the Executive dictation in a matter
deeply involving the interest of all citizens of the State, and in the
disposition of which the people without distinction of party feel so much
solicitude...
Springfield, Jan. 21, 1845.
... Mr. Backenstos introduced a bill, making the counties liable for all costs
in criminal cases, where the same cannot be collected from the defendants... The
bill after passing through two readings, was referred to the committee on the
Judiciary....
The House have just taken a vote upon the Mormon Charters, after being annoyed
all afternoon with two Mormon sermons' one from Backenstos, who fleeced the
Altonians of no small sum. known as the leading Jack Mormon, and the other from
Babbitt, the Mormon. The vote was then taken, and the House repealed the
Charters by a vote of 76 to 36; only FORTY MAJORITY. When it came Wollard's turn
to vote, he got up , and attempted to excuse himself for voting for repeal, by
asserting that Judge Logan's speech had changed his opinion; and alluded to my
showing him up in his real colors, by saying that it was an attack that could
not injure him, considering from whence it came. He condoled with his brother
Jack Mormon, Backenstos, in separating from him, and then voted for repeal. Mr.
Wollard will find that he will not only have to explain his Mormon votes to his
constituents, but that he will also have to give some satisfactory reason to
them why he was one of the twenty-five members in the House that voted to have
the State swindled out of Ten Thousand Dollars in the Binding contract. I shall
continue to expose all such infamous conduct, let it emanate from Mr. Wollard.
his chosen companion, Backenstos, the Jack Mormon, or any one else...
Note 1: The written counsel of the Quorum of the Twelve to Representative Almon
W. Babbitt, in 1845, echoes the "blood atonement" sentiments previously
expressed in the fervid hymn published in their Nauvoo Times and Seasons,
following the assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith: "Praise to his [Smith's]
mem'ry, he died as a martyr... Long shall his blood, which was shed by
assassins, stain Illinois while the earth lauds his fame." In subsequent years,
the sanguine anticipation of requisite divine retribution (as well as the
Saints' individual desires for revenge) against the leaders and people of
Illinois was one which crept into personal patriarchal blessings and into the
temple endowment ceremonies, as performed in Great Salt Lake City and elsewhere
among the fugitive western Mormons. Many a LDS elder in Utah during the second
half of the nineteenth century, lived in anticipation of seeing his church's
vengeance soon fall upon the "ungodly enemies" that church had left behind in
Illinois -- enemies who had caused the "murdered blood" of the prophet to smoke
forth from the ground, and who had expelled his followers from their "City
Beautiful" on the banks of the Mississippi.
Note 2: Whether or not the LDS leadership pressed their "gallows" intimidations
upon the Illinois legislators any more forcibly than through the message
expressed in the Twelve's letter to Babbitt, remains unknown at this late date.
Babbitt's inability to halt the repeal of the Nauvoo Charters did not end his
political career with the Saints -- although his various failures among the
Mormons, were credited by some commentators as the ultimate cause of Babbitt's
bloody murder, ten years later. See the notes and comments relating to Babbitt,
appended to his brother-in-law's letter, published in the
May 20, 1850 issue of the Cincinnati Daily Commercial, as well as
Patriarch William Smith's pertinent comments, as reprinted in the
Jan. 11, 1850 issue of the Liberty Tribune.