Much on the Mormons at Nauvoo...
Item # 710500
February 03, 1844
NILES' NATIONAL REGISTER, Baltimore, Feb. 3, 1844
* Mormons - Mormonism
* The Rise of Nauvoo, Illinois
* Frontier Conflict and Kidnappings
* The Calhoun-Smith Letters
Pages 2 and 3 contain a lengthy article concerning the Mormons in Nauvoo. Headed: "The Mormons", bits include: "This singular community contrive to make themselves of importance. Numbering as they do many thousand persons, all moving with the perfect devotion at the nod of their prophet, and burning with ardor in a cause which most of them believe to be of divine authority...".
Further on is:."...Besides the building of the temple, the hotel, nay the city itself of Nauvoo where they a few years since took up their abode, great improvements have been effected..." and what followed is a letter detailing the development of Nauvoo by the Mormons.
This is followed by a report concerning: "...the repeated demands by the state of Missouri for the body of General Joseph Smith, as well as the common cruel practice of kidnapping citizens of Illinois & forcing them across the Mississippi river & then incarcerating them in the dungeons or prison in Missouri...".
Much more concerning this as well.
The Mormon content continues with another page containing: "Correspondence Of Gen. Jos. Smith and Hon. J. C. Calhoun" datelined at Nauvoo, and which includes a letter signed: J. C. Calhoun, and two letters signed: Joseph Smith, one very lengthy.
Sixteen pages, 8 1/2 by 12 inches, nice condition.
Background: This issue of Niles' National Register from February 3, 1844, captures the volatile intersection of religious exceptionalism, states' rights, and frontier justice at the absolute zenith of the Mormon settlement in Nauvoo, Illinois, just four months before the assassination of Joseph Smith. The text highlights how the Latter-day Saints constructed a rapidly growing, politically unified "city-state" with a formidable state-sanctioned militia (the Nauvoo Legion) that deeply unnerved neighboring communities, sparking violent border clashes and retaliatory kidnappings over Missouri's relentless attempts to extradite Smith for treason. Shut out from federal legal protections due to the prevailing political doctrine of states' rights—as sharply illustrated in the reprinted correspondence where presidential candidate John C. Calhoun refused federal intervention for past anti-Mormon violence—Joseph Smith used this exact moment to launch his own radical 1844 independent campaign for the U.S. Presidency. Ultimately, this newspaper functions as a vital primary record of the escalating legal, ideological, and physical warfare that transformed Nauvoo into a national flashpoint, directly setting the stage for the destruction of the dissenting Nauvoo Expositor newspaper, Smith’s subsequent martyrdom at Carthage Jail, and the eventual forced western exodus of the Mormons to Utah.
* Mormons - Mormonism
* The Rise of Nauvoo, Illinois
* Frontier Conflict and Kidnappings
* The Calhoun-Smith Letters
Pages 2 and 3 contain a lengthy article concerning the Mormons in Nauvoo. Headed: "The Mormons", bits include: "This singular community contrive to make themselves of importance. Numbering as they do many thousand persons, all moving with the perfect devotion at the nod of their prophet, and burning with ardor in a cause which most of them believe to be of divine authority...".
Further on is:."...Besides the building of the temple, the hotel, nay the city itself of Nauvoo where they a few years since took up their abode, great improvements have been effected..." and what followed is a letter detailing the development of Nauvoo by the Mormons.
This is followed by a report concerning: "...the repeated demands by the state of Missouri for the body of General Joseph Smith, as well as the common cruel practice of kidnapping citizens of Illinois & forcing them across the Mississippi river & then incarcerating them in the dungeons or prison in Missouri...".
Much more concerning this as well.
The Mormon content continues with another page containing: "Correspondence Of Gen. Jos. Smith and Hon. J. C. Calhoun" datelined at Nauvoo, and which includes a letter signed: J. C. Calhoun, and two letters signed: Joseph Smith, one very lengthy.
Sixteen pages, 8 1/2 by 12 inches, nice condition.
Background: This issue of Niles' National Register from February 3, 1844, captures the volatile intersection of religious exceptionalism, states' rights, and frontier justice at the absolute zenith of the Mormon settlement in Nauvoo, Illinois, just four months before the assassination of Joseph Smith. The text highlights how the Latter-day Saints constructed a rapidly growing, politically unified "city-state" with a formidable state-sanctioned militia (the Nauvoo Legion) that deeply unnerved neighboring communities, sparking violent border clashes and retaliatory kidnappings over Missouri's relentless attempts to extradite Smith for treason. Shut out from federal legal protections due to the prevailing political doctrine of states' rights—as sharply illustrated in the reprinted correspondence where presidential candidate John C. Calhoun refused federal intervention for past anti-Mormon violence—Joseph Smith used this exact moment to launch his own radical 1844 independent campaign for the U.S. Presidency. Ultimately, this newspaper functions as a vital primary record of the escalating legal, ideological, and physical warfare that transformed Nauvoo into a national flashpoint, directly setting the stage for the destruction of the dissenting Nauvoo Expositor newspaper, Smith’s subsequent martyrdom at Carthage Jail, and the eventual forced western exodus of the Mormons to Utah.
Category: Pre-Civil War
